It’s been a busy few days since David’s last 'recent sightings' blog - he's off on his hols now so apologies for the delayed post!
Katherine made an exciting discovery during our volunteer work party last Thursday, when she spotted a first for the reserve – a wasp spider! Many of us attempted to get photos on our phones with little success but luckily Dave had his camera nearby:
Photo credit: Dave Rogers – wasp spider
The spider was found on our land over the river in Norfolk, unfortunately not open to the public but hopefully they’ll make their way over – they may already be in the areas open to visitors of course and just not been spotted yet! We were back on the Norfolk land yesterday, finally finishing off the ragwort pulling for the year and lucky volunteer Nigel spotted another one! We’re pretty sure it wasn’t the same individual, unless it’s travelled a very long distance during the last five days....
In terms of other sightings the osprey was seen yesterday morning so it’s still about. On Sunday it was perching on the bog oak in Joist Fen North reedbed, on and off for approximately three hours, so showing well for visitors down there at the time.
An otter made an appearance in the visitor centre pool on Monday, much to the delight of everyone lucky enough to be nearby at the time – volunteers Su and John spotted it swimming straight across the middle. Always a nice sighting to report!
Hobbys have been showing well over the past few days, including reports of three juveniles over the washland. Hobbys were about yesterday too, with six being seen over the East Wood (the poplar wood nearest the visitor centre). Our resident ‘visitor centre’ kingfisher has also been pleasing us all with regular jaunts across the pool and volunteer John was treated to the spectacle of numerous kingfishers flying very close by at New Fen North viewpoint on Monday evening - he thinks there were five or six but it was difficult to keep count as they zipped around the viewpoint shelter and over the pool in front.
It was a bit damp yesterday but we saw good numbers of house martins and swallows to keep us entertained. We even had a ‘swallow swarm’ accompany us as we drove back from our Norfolk land to the main reserve – they flew so close to the vehicle that we slowed right down to a crawl and they seemed to even fly straight under us! As it was raining quite heavily at the time we couldn’t think there would be any insects around the truck, maybe they were just showing us their amazing flying skills. Lovely to see them so close!
Just to finish off with a big thank you to all the volunteers who have helped us pull ragwort this season – looking back over my ‘Ragwort Stats’ we’ve pulled approximately 50 trailer loads worth of ragwort over 12 sessions, which varied in length from a couple of hours to yesterdays mammoth last effort of 6.5 hours - I think we’re all relieved it’s over for another year. Thanks everyone, we couldn't have done it without you!