We’ve had a double dose of telly appearances over the past few weeks! If Leighton Moss featuring on Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir wasn’t enough glitz and glamour for you, then we hope you caught us on Susan Calman’s Grand Day Out last night on Channel 5. For the fifth episode of the series, Susan explored Lancashire and Morecambe Bay; her love of Eric Morecambe brought her to Leighton Moss for a little bit of birdwatching. The comedian headed down to the saltmarsh, where she met Jon Carter (Visitor Experience Manager) and got to look at some of the wonderful waders through Eric Morecambe’s own binoculars! It was an honour for the team at Leighton Moss to look after the binoculars for the filming period, and a joy to welcome Susan and Helen Mirren to the site. If you missed it, then make sure to check it out on catch-up. If seeing Leighton Moss from your living room has inspired you to get out and visit this weekend, then read on to find out what you might see…
Our Warden team have been surveying on the saltmarsh; 24 young Avocets at varying stages of development and 47 adults have been counted, so it’s looking to be a bumper year for breeding birds. Up to fifty Bar-tailed Godwits have been seen with c600 Black-tailed Godwits down on the saltmarsh, and a Spoonbill put in a brief appearance on the first of the month. On the main reserve, visitors are consistently having good sightings of Ospreys fishing across different pools. Bitterns are still being seen in flight across the reserve on a regular basis, as the females continue to provision for their chicks. An adult Little Gull has been a particularly notable sighting, spotted throughout May and into the first week of June. These birds have usually arrived in their breeding grounds further north by April and May. They are seen in the area on passage - its unusual to have an individual here so late on in the Spring.
Over the past few evenings, the reserve has been humming with invertebrate life – a banquet for Swifts, Swallows, Sand Martins and the other aerial feeders. Insects like the Long-horned Caddisfly require habitats with pond, lakes, and slow flowing rivers, so places like Leighton Moss are ideal, and resultantly help to provide feeding opportunities for red-listed birds like Swifts (50-100 Swifts have been seen feeding on the reserve in the evenings throughout the week). Damselflies, including Blue-tailed and Large Red, are emerging to find mates, bejewelling the reeds and Yellow Flag Iris across the reserve; they're a perfect feast for Hobbies which are regularly being seen flying over Causeway Pool.
Next weekend, we are joined again by Julie Amanda from Nature To Your Home in The Holt. Julie has produced a line of homeware inspired by the wildlife and landscape images of Dean Andrew Photography, an exceptional photographer who has the ability to capture a story and the beauty of nature in every image. If you’d like to learn from Dean, then his next Wildlife and Landscape Photography Workshop at RSPB Leighton Moss is on Monday 10 July.
We hope to see you soon
Beth