I struck lucky this morning. I went for a walk around the reserve and just as I was walking along the north side of East Wood (the first poplar wood) I could hear a very distinctive sound behind me. It kept repeating the sounds: "chew it", "chew it". Although this sound was familiar to me, it seemed completely out of context. It was the call of a spotted redshank, a wader that I would expect to be on the coast at this time of year. They are quite scarce inland, so I decided that I had to see it to believe it.
Shortly after, a grey wader with a long beak and a white, cigar shaped mark on its back flew west along the river. It was a spotted redshank! If you are not familiar with this species, here is an illustration of one:
Image credit: Mike Langman (rspb-images.com)
It eventually flew south over New Fen North (the first area of reedbed) before disappearing south of the railway line. I then got excited as I thought that I had found a first for the reserve. However, once I got back to the visitor centre and looked at the bird report, I found out that there had been several previous records of this elegant wader on the reserve. Oh well! What was interesting though was that the last record of this species here was back in September 2008. At least I had found the reserve's first spotted redshank in eight years!
In other news, the last couple of days have been great for birds of prey. The juvenile osprey was still around yesterday and was mostly seen from Joist Fen viewpoint. There were three hobbys tearing around the sky over the washland and at least three marsh harriers were over Joist Fen viewpoint.
Several bitterns were seen in flight yesterday and I saw one flying low over the washland yesterday morning. The local bearded tits were busy this morning and a little flock were clambering about in the reedbed near New Fen viewpoint. Unfortunately, our two pairs of cranes haven't been seen for a week or so but they may just be keeping a low profile nearby.
There have also been plenty of spiders around recently including good numbers of this smart species:
Image credit: David White
Its a marbled orb weaver which is a bit of a local specialty. If you click on the link, you will find a distribution map of this species. It is only found at a few sites in East Anglia so we are very glad that it calls the reserve home.
There have also been plenty of butterflies to see including impressive numbers of small tortoiseshells. It is fantastic to see so many as this species has really been struggling recently. We hope to see you soon!