Afternoon all.
Its been a tad mixed over the past 7 days starting with an bright n' icy weekend that drew a few hardy types to the airfield hides with the chance of seeing some of our more elusive residents. Indeed a lucky few, with the constitution of an Arctic naturist judging from the temperature of fen hide on Saturday, were rewarded with excellent close views of Otters, Water Rail, several Bearded Tits and Bittern who abandoned their secretive ways due to the ice.
Another extra super special mention goes to the female Hen Harrier that spent 2 hours performing some aerial acrobatics in from of the visitor centre, sometimes just 15 metres away on Saturday. The weekend proved a doozey for other raptors with Merlin, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel making appearances on the low ground in front of the visitor centre.
A huge thanks to everyone who took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch on the weekend also, with a big shout out to Christopher who was the first to correctly identify the mystery bird. Garden and farmland bird numbers were sky high due to the weather and I saw 9 Tree Sparrow, 4 Siskin, 1 Great Tit, 2 Blue Tits, 3 Brambling, 6 Chaffinch and a Robin all crowded around the Willow Hide feeders. A trip up past the arable to Tower Pool Hide is good for 60+ Corn Buntings and more Linnet than I could shake a stick at and I'm pretty good at that kind of thing.
As the week warmed up, peaking at a balmy 9 degrees the waders came out in force with around 100 Curlew strutting around at the back of the pools along with a single, presumably lonely Canada Goose.
If you ain't seen her yet the Desert Wheatear is still trucking away on Rattray beach and was seen yesterday doing her thing. This pretty much consists of flying away just when you have her in focus but theres still Guillemot around too.
Thats all for this week. See ya.
Iain
Pic related. Linnets. Lots of Linnets. Taken by Duncan Goulder