Just to let you all know that it's that special time of year when the sugar beet is harvested from the fields surrounding our car park. The fruits of the harvest are piled up in a huge heap near the car park and are then loaded onto lorries to be taken to the fragrant sugar factory just outside Newark. The lorry loading will be happening this weekend (21st & 22nd November) and so there will be some delays for people driving into our car park. Patience will be required whilst you potentially have to wait for up to 10 minutes for the lorries to be loaded up. Please also note that our overflow car park has had to be moved to accommodate the sugar beet heap.

The starlings are still providing an impressive display in the evenings, with about 18000 reported yesterday, they went down into the reedbed just before 4pm. Tree sparrows (upto 12) are still making good use of the wild bird seed crop adjacent to the car park, whilst other recent sightings have included marsh harrier, peregrine (2 regularly on Phase 3), pintail, dunlin, stonechat, redpoll and the now expected great white egrets (2 yesterday).

Snipe on Phase 1, hiding amongst the cages protecting the developing reed clumps. Stuart Carlton