Finally the weather has warmed up a bit (I went out in only four layers yesterday, and without a coat!) and the treacherous layer of ice has gone from the entrance track and the car park, making the reserve a much more pleasant place to walk around again. With most of the staff away for Christmas it's been a fairly quiet time and a chance to plan a few events for the new year and start making a dent in the annual bird report. It's been fascinating to catch up on how many of which species have been seen on the reserve over the year and how numbers of our common birds fluctuate. It's also interesting how few common birds that we see every day actually get recorded- we've only got one 'official' record of a pheasant on the list- so it just shows that it's important to leave us a note of all your sightings and not just the exciting rarities.
Bird-wise we've still got plenty of geese around, Greylang have reached a couple of hundred, there's been White-fronted Geese outside the visitor centre on most mornings and 14 Bean Geese were reported in with the flock of Pinkies today. The Hen Harrier is still showing nicely as well, usually in the afternoons. Possibly the best sighting of the past few days has been a big fox that regularly hunts along the bank under the Tower Pool Path. It's been giving us some fantastic views from the visitor centre as it hunts in the long grass.
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