Well the weather has finally turned something up in the form of our bittern seen flying over the Loch yesterday.. David has attempted to upload a picture but the page seemed to crash every time he tried and so he has eitehr loaded six versions or none at all. Despite this I have to say that the novilty of snow is wearing very thin, we had another inch or so today and the temperature never got above freezing (and that was inside the office with the heating on full blast!). One of our regulars saw the bittern well this afternoon from Fen hide - both in flight and feeding on the edge of the reeds on the far side of the Loch. I was in a meeting so Tim took great pleasure in sending texts to update me as to what the bird was doing. Needless to say by the time I was able to have a look it was not showing! Tomorrow I will sit in the Fen hide from about 2pm until I see it - unless I get too cold after all I am an office person now as certain members of my team keep pointing out to me!
Ralf spent the day hassling waterfowl on the Loch - which first thing was completely frozen. Despite some very near misses I did not see him catch anything which probably explains why by mid afternoon he had moved on to attacking the local foxes!
It was definately a day for raptors with peregrine, merlin and hen harrier seen as well as the normal suspects.
Work on our new hedgerows continues with the contractors on site installing the rabbit proof fencing before we start planting the 12000 odd trees - lets hope the weather improves and the ground softens up before we have to start.
The reserve year list continues to tick along and is now at 108 (sanderling was the other addition yesterday along with the bittern).
Dom