What a beautiful sunny day we had at the reserve today! Is this the start of summer? I hope so :)
The osprey and the female marsh harrier were both out for awhile enjoying the sun too. The osprey managed to catch a couple of fish while at the loch. It looks like we now have two mute swan families; both with 3 cygnets each. And a female mallard was seen with 8 older ducklings, so it looks like they might make it. There's definitely been a rise in mallard numbers at the reserve recently - up to 30, mostly drakes.
The bad news is that the black-headed gull colony had almost completely disappeared - only two were seen today. That's yet another decrease in numbers in the last few weeks. It was, again, a case of the otters (although none have been seen this week) getting at the colony.
Other sightings today included: goldfinch and bullfinch on the paths past the sluice brigde, the red squirrel was out at the trees before the Gullery boardwalk, sedge warblers and reed buntings whizzing past the front of Gullery hide, a few pair of gadwall and tufted duck are still around at Swamp and 19 greylag geese were seen resting where the highland cattle feeder is.
If you're luck enough you might be able to see the water rail now - on Tues (31st May) there was a sighting of one, clear as day, infront of gullery hide. So keep your eyes peeled.