A pretty momentous morning today as I had my first proper walk out along the new Summer Trail to Fen & Bay Hide. We’ve been after a footpath to these hides for many years and after a winter of work by the wardening team, it’s now finished, signposted and ready for us to open to visitors.
The official opening ceremony for the path is on Saturday 8th June at 10.30am, there will be celebratory coffee and cake and a guided walk along our new trail if you want to come along.
Sightings-wise, our run of big white things with long beaks continued. The Little Egret hung around until at least the 28th (an odd thing to be excited about when you’re from further south but a bird that’s not been seen on the reserve up here for a good couple of years). On Wednesday 29th we hit the hat-trick when Scott found this Spoonbill wandering about on the Low Ground (Spoonbill photo by Scott O'Hara).
A late night survey on Thursday picked up the sound of Spotted Crake calling behind Tower Pool Hide- the first of those on the reserve for a couple of years too.
For the more common birds, breeding season seems to have finally kicked off for the ducks with broods of Mallard and Shelduck splashing and diving around in the pools over the weekend. Garganey keep popping up on the low ground but are as always, quite hard to find when you’re actually looking for them.
There are still regular appearances by Osprey and Short-eared Owl and there’s been both Peregrine and a slightly out of season Hen Harrier (sadly not the Montagu’s that was reported a bit further south today) over the reserve in the past couple of days.
Finally, the sun has bought out a few more butterflies and the path down to Fen Hide had lots of Green-veined White on the Cuckoo Flower and this lovely Small Copper on the short grass of the track.