There has been lots to see at Marshside this week with large numbers of lapwing and golden plover giving a spectacular aerial display across Sutton's marsh.
Roger Tidman (rspb-images.com)
An early walk around the marsh on Tuesday flushed a number of brown hare and common snipe, both of them weaving and whirling away as we approached. There were several little egrets and grey heron skulking in the pools and ditches, water rail and kingfisher have been spotted from the main hide and there have been plenty of hunting opportunities for peregrine, merlin and kestrel throughout the week, each visit bringing a flurry of activity from the fleeing birds.
Marshside sunrise by Barry Smith
Curlew, black tailed Godwit and oystercatcher have provided a beautiful soundtrack from Nel's hide and the high water levels mean all of our ducks are happy, with plenty of wigeon, teal and pintail along with tufted duck, shelduck and shoveler. A number of visitors to the reserve enjoyed the big tide bird walk on Thursday, skylarks and common snipe flew upwards to avoid the incoming tide and the saltmarsh came alive with huge flocks of waders - dunlin, knot, grey plover and redshank. Further towards the estuary amazing views of cormorants, pintail, tufted ducks and pochard, all in all a good day out - future walks will be announced soon so please look out for our future organised events.
And finally........I was out and about earlier this morning when I heard about a blue morph snow goose that had been spotted on Rimmers Marsh, I joined a couple of local birders who had managed to find it in amongst a large flock of pink footed geese. This bird is usually found in North America so it's a really unusual sighting - apparently popular in captivity so possibly an escapee, who knows??!