The recent cold weather resulting in frozen ground and in some areas a covering of snow has made it more difficult for a lot of birds to find food to eat and water to drink whilst also requiring extra energy just to stay warm.
This makes it that bit more important to keep feeders topped up at this time of year and have accessible water for birds to drink from.
The feeders just outside the Visitor Centre here at Mersehead have been attracting the usual plethora of birds. Yellowhammers, tree sparrows, house sparrows, dunnocks, greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, blackbirds, robins, pheasants, blue tits, great tits, coal tits and crows have all been seen the last few days.
Great tit – Photo Credit: Nigel Blake (rspb-images.com)
From the hides there has been the usual mixture of teal, shoveler, gadwall, pintail, wigeon, moorhens, mute swans, little grebes, a solitary green winged teal and occasional sightings of buzzards and hen harriers as well as roe deer grazing on the grassy fields.
Barnacle geese can be seen feeding around most of the reserve and on the beach there have been ringed plovers, shelduck, redshank and curlew.
At least one little egret is still being seen down on the merse. Large flocks of linnets, often joined by a few twite, have been seen frequently in the fields near to the woodland and stonechats and bullfinches have been making a few appearances around the coastal trail.
We have also had a small tortoiseshell butterfly join us in the visitor centre today (Thursday). Small tortoiseshells are a type of butterfly that overwinter as fully developed adults. They often make use of houses, sheds or other buildings as safe places to hibernate and generally emerge around March or April, however on warm sunny days or in heated buildings they can often emerge early. The best thing to do if you find an active butterfly in your house at this time of year is to safely move it to a cold and dark environment that is out of the way of predators, such as inside a log pile, a garden shed, or a hollow tree where it will resume hibernation and emerge again when its food plants are growing and it has a chance to mate.
Small tortoiseshell - Photo credit: Robert Conn
Upcoming events!
Check out our Events page for details of forthcoming activities including a bird ringing demonstration, interactive activities for kids and guided walks.