This week has seen not only new birds for the year list but also new faces to the reserve.
Richard started last week as site manager and Tom started on Wednesday as our new intern (I’m sure they will be introducing themselves soon on the blog!) and in the next few weeks more residential volunteers will be arriving, so there’s plenty of new faces around the reserve at the moment!
There has been good numbers of duck out on the low ground this week including wigeon, teal, mallard, gadwall and smaller numbers of shoveler and pintail. A quick trip to tower pool hide this morning to get a count of goose numbers on the fields saw 385 pink-footed geese, 37 white-fronted geese, 90 barnacle geese along with 80 curlew in the fields opposite the hide.
The lapwing flock has been showing off nicely in front of the centre and the low ground, totalling around 1600 birds, which were joined by 500 golden plover and 38 dunlin, a pretty impressive sight when they are all in the air at once.
The 2012 year list has been building up nicely (additions this week mostly from Vicky!), new to the list are long-tailed tit, song thrush, yellowhammer, brambling, linnet, fieldfare, corn bunting, golden plover and snipe (Tom’s first entry on the year list). The grand total now stands at 74 and with a Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) on Sunday morning who knows what will turn up.....
Sunset over the garden