October's Wetland Bird Survey

Having spent the past two hours grappling with enormous pike that needed to be moved from the Phase 3 restoration area, here are the slightly delayed, but nevertheless brilliant... Wetland Bird Survey records from October. Stuart once again braved the elements and trekked around the whole reserve, counting wetland birds as he went. There are large numbers of gulls on site at the moment and Stuart did particularly well picking out a yellow legged gull from the throngs of similar looking lesser black backed gulls. It can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack,but if you've got a bit of time spare and patience it's worth scanning through flocks of gulls looking for anything out of the ordinary.

Water levels are creeping up on some parts of the reserve at the moment, which will be a massive relief to the fish and our wintering wildfowl, but please note we still need an increase of about 10cm in water depth before we can open the floating bridge again.

Photos below both taken by Stuart Carlton.

Top: Dunlin looking for its lunch in the Langford mud (there's a lot of it at the moment!).

Bottom: Black tailed godwit probing for food in what remains of the crystal clear Langford waters