Good afternoon. The last couple of days have been pretty unpredictable here! I will start with a few photographs that local photographer Tim James has taken here this week:
A little egret on the washland from Monday:
Some images of young coots from Monday:
A male gadwall with an unusually pale collar from this morning:
A weasel from this morning:
Image credits: Tim James
Thank you very much to Tim for sharing these great images with us.
Since my last recent sightings blog post, two avocets flew west along the river on Thursday and as mentioned yesterday, a male golden oriole was calling and singing intermittently in West Wood.
On Friday morning, despite volunteer Pete Dolton and I spending several hours listening, we unfortunately didn't hear the golden oriole. However, two female cuckoos flew over New Fen North and two mistle thrushes kept flying back and forward between Trial Wood and West Wood.
Meanwhile, in Brandon Fen, Simon, our local bird ringer, was ringing in his first “Constant Effort Site” session of the year. I have attached his ringing report below. He also saw two turtle doves at the eastern end of the reserve and three common buzzards flew over.
As the day went on, around 25 hobbys were hunting over Joist Fen viewpoint and a red kite flew south over the reserve. A bittern was seen from Joist Fen viewpoint and a stoat was seen between the same viewpoint and Mere Hide.
It has been a bit of a breezy morning this morning. A kingfisher was seen from Mere Hide and several cuckoos were seen from New Fen viewpoint.
I went for a walk around Brandon Fen with our Wildlife Explorer’s club. We saw a common millipede and a cinnabar moth.
Suzanne and I have just been up to the Washland viewpoint and we had a fantastic view of two hobbys hunting over the large pool. There were plenty of swifts overhead and a garden warbler was singing next to the viewpoint.
There has also been a sighting of a Chinese water deer in West Wood, which is a good sighting for here.
The weather forecast is looking great for the next couple of days so why not come and visit. If we have any other reports of golden orioles, we will let you know. We hope to see you soon!