Lewis' Saturday Blog 14th April

What a fantastic day, I have seen a new species for myself at the reserve- a tundra bean goose. Also I have seen my first osprey of the year flying over the loch, towards the Kinross pier. The bean goose was mixed in with a flock of pink footed geese, two of which had neck collars on but they were too far away to read, which extended over a large area of the reserve. One of my favourite ducks, the gadwall, were present in larger numbers than usual on the reserve along with a pair of nesting swans in front of the first hide. Me and my uncle Alan did a pond dipping session today where we caught close to 30 fish, dragonfly and caddis fly larvae and the biggest diving beetle I have ever seen. When doing this a raven flew overhead along with a rather inquisitive Robin, who had a great interest in what we were doing. Gulls on St Serfs island are now well under way in mating and nesting, with huge numbers of them gathering on the island. They were joined today by another large flock of pink footed geese and the usual perched cormorants. The blog seems to be really long this week, that's because there are so many amazing spectacles here on the reserve to observe. This is a great time to visit the reserve with the lapwings beginning to nest and birds singing all over the place, who knows what will turn up next week.