Good morning! Gulls and egrets have definitely been the flavour of the week this week. Local birdwatcher and bird ringer Lee Gregory spent three hours up at the washland viewpoint on Monday afternoon. There were over a thousand gulls present, including two Caspian gulls:
This included a second winter bird, which is the individual in the shot with the black tip to the beak and the black tail:
...And an adult, which is the bird in the middle of the shot once again with the white head and white spots on the tail:
Image credits: Lee Gregory
There were also at least eight yellow legged gulls present. This included at least six adults and two second winter birds. The highest counts were of 850 lesser black backed gulls and 300 black headed gulls.
As well as the gulls, there were two great white egrets chasing eachother around and nine whooper swans were present for around 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, closer to the visitor centre, a barn owl was seen from the visitor centre window. Two marsh tits were seen in front of the visitor centre and a treecreeper was seen behind the visitor centre.
A male hen harrier was seen from Joist Fen viewpoint that evening. This is the first sighting of this species on the reserve for quite some time so lets hope it sticks around.
I returned to work on Wednesday after an extended birthday celebration. I walked around a very frosty Brandon Fen trail and met local photographer Matt Walton on the riverbank. We walked up to the Washland viewpoint and I saw a little grebe on the river. As we walked along, a water pipit flew up beside us and there were three goldeneyes in front of the viewpoint.
Matt and I went our separate ways at the viewpoint and he took these lovely pictures:
Dawn over the river:
One of the great white egrets:
Image credits: Matt Walton
Thank you very much to Matt and Lee for sharing these images with us.
The weather wasn't great yesterday but Katherine and I had a pleasant surprise when around 65 pink footed geese flew west over the visitor centre. This is the first record of this species on the reserve for almost exactly three years so it was lovely to see them!
If you are planning to visit this weekend, please bear in mind that it is going to be very windy, especially tomorrow morning. We will be monitoring the situation closely so if have to close part of the reserve, we will let you know with as much notice as possible.
I will leave you with a picture of the sunrise from this morning. I hope you like it!:
Image credit: David White