Hello and welcome to the latest round-up from the team here at Lakenheath Fen- we have been spoilt for sightings lately, especially on the Washland with a wealth of ducks up there, including up to 56 avocet, 2 garganey, 4 shelduck, 3 ruff, 109 black-tailed godwits and a little egret, all on 30 March. Black-tailed godwit numbers have reached as high as 300, and we believe that at least one of them had a coloured leg-ring, so if anyone spots a godwit and is able to read its ring, we would be very grateful if you could pass on the code to us. And even if you can't see well enough to read the information on the ring, then just to know you have seen one would be great. The day before, on 29 March, saw a single curlew and oystercatcher, 12 redshank and 4 snipe. Some days we've seen a dunlin too, most recently on 28 March. Kingfisher sightings have increased recently too with one in flight along the river on 28 March and recent records from Mere Hide too, after a lull of very few sightings in recent months. Below is a lovely photo of a garganey drake taken by a visitor, David Ball, on a recent visit:The photos below were sent in by Robin Johnson, who visited a few days ago and spent a while in Mere Hide, where he was rewarded with a handsome male Chinese water deer and a pair of great crested grebes beginning to court each other:Signs of Spring are widespread across the reserve with the first common lizards spotted basking on the middle of the three raised beds outside the Visitor Centre on 20 March, and on 11 March we had a grass snake swimming across the icy water underneath the bird feeders at the Photo Station. Our butterfly list remains at five definite species, with the hardy peacocks, red admirals, small tortoiseshells, comma and brimstones making up the cast on warmer days. We have had 'white' butterflies spotted in flight on a couple of occasions but they have so far been too distant and hurried in flight to be identified to species level. They are most likely to be small white, but green-veined white or female orange-tip are also possibilities! We will never know...! Chiffchaff are calling from multiple places now on warm days, and it shouldn't be long before we hear blackcap too- they are at nearby reserves but we being more exposed and colder seem to get them singing a little later. Our first bittern booming survey of the year took place on Tuesday (29 March) when roughly eight males were recorded across the reserve (the actual number was between 5 and 10 but 8 is our best guess) and the surveys are co-ordinated by our two wardens Katherine and Luke. We will listen and record the number, 'style', frequency and location of each boom on paper. Then, after the survey is finished, each surveyor's chart is compared with others to try to create one overall image of where the males are located. This provides a good estimate of how many male bittern territories we have, and therefore how many nests we could have later in the Spring and crucially, where those nests might be. So the data from these early booming surveys really helps us to focus our attention for the later surveys where we look for feeding flights from females arriving into and leaving nests active nests with food. If you would like to join us for some of these surveys, we do open up a few of them each year as VIP events for guests to join staff on 'high seats' which are purpose-built wooden seats giving superb views across the reedbeds from around ten feet up. The later nesting surveys also focus on recording the number of active marsh harrier nests and as well as these graceful birds of prey, great white egret, bearded tits and other reedbed wildlife often put on a show too! Being very early in the morning, these surveys often yield a wealth of wildlife sightings. To find out more about these VIP events, please click here.The bird feeders at the Visitor Centre are attracting huge numbers of reed bunting, as well as lots of goldfinch and a few marsh tit, long-tailed tit and one or two chiffchaff can often be seen creeping about in the willows behind the feeders themselves. Stonechat and water pipit have been readily seen this week along the riverbank, and you may begin to see grey wagtail along the river, especially closer to the Wilton Bridge as they nest in the area each Spring. If you take a walk along the riverbank, keep your eyes low too because there's plenty of colt's-foot shining up at you with their big yellow daisy faces. Red dead-nettle and the heftier white dead-nettle are flowering too and both are common but beautiful plants that are adored by bees.On the human side of things, we at last have plans in place to get our toilets working again, as well as our heating and hot water back on and to restore electricity supply to the workshop. Complications from a badly-located small fire around a month ago and two burglaries in three months have left us in a bit of a state but we are beginning to get things fixed again. We will have port-a-loos in place for another couple of weeks, at least, but hopefully we can soon offer the usual facilities to visitors again. Thankfully, apart from needing standalone heaters, our Visitor Centre is unaffected so our visitor welcome continues almost as normal (aside from the toilet situation!).We have several events coming up aside from the VIP bittern survey events mentioned earlier, including our monthly guided walks, a birdsong walk on 1 May to celebrate International Dawn Chorus Day and a butterfly and dragonfly walk in June. For more information on all our events, please click here.As a helpful reminder to visitors:Our Visitor Centre is open from 9am to 5pm daily. Refreshments and a small amount of indoor seating are available during these hours.Our toilets (currently port-a-loos) are open 24/7. These are located at the end of the gravel track from the back door of the Visitor Centre, just before you turn right to join the main circular (purple) trail.Binocular hire and pond dipping are available from 9am to 5pm daily from the Visitor Centre.Our trails, visitor car park and Mere Hide are open from dawn until dusk, daily.Over the next couple of weeks we should see the next wave of migrant birds reach us, including sand martin, swallow and blackcap. Our insect scene should change a little with the addition of mid-Spring species such as orange-tip, small white and green-veined white butterflies and perhaps even the first large red damselflies or common blue damselflies.Hope to see you soon!By Heidi Jones (Visitor Experience Officer, RSPB Lakenheath Fen).