Reflections on Springwatch

After another wonderful three weeks of Springwatch, I thought I'd look back at some of the wildlife stories from this year's series.

Where else can I really start than with the biggest star of this year's series: Spineless Simon. At just 5 cm length he's certainly not the biggest species at Minsmere, but our sticklebacks first came to prominence with our volunteer guides last year, and the TV cameras have certainly helped raised the species' profile this year. 

Although the live footage has now ended (indeed much of the equipment from the BBC Village has already left), the BBC cameras are still filming Si, and having just strolled down to Island Mere I can confirm that Si is still busy fanning his nest, even though the first fry were seen on Thursday evening. We'll try to keep you posted with Si's progress, but don't forget that you can also watch sticklebacks in the ditch close to the Wildlife Lookout.

We'll keep an eye on the great tits in the traffic cone too, as they are close to our office and easy to check. However, now that the cameras have gone it will be difficult to keep track of the greenfinch nest without disturbing them. We hope we can bring updates from the barn owls, but it's not easy to check the nest without the cameras.

Another species featured regularly on the live cameras was the water vole. Although the cameras were not visible from the public parts of the reserve, we are lucky enough to see a regular water vole at the pond below the sand martin bank. And today this water vole has been incredibly showy, feeding on sedges and a discarded apple right below the boardwalk.

Water vole by Ian Barthorpe

Among the other species featured this year, it's great to see that nine long-tailed tits fledged successfully, and I keep coming across vocal family parties on the reserve, so I think they are doing well. Likewise, we regularly hear Cetti's warblers, though they will start to quieten down for the summer moult soon.

Perhaps the best news is from the avocets, which look set for their best breeding season in more than 20 years. At least 60 pairs have already produced more than 40 chicks, with many now well on the  way to fledging. A pair of oystercatchers have two chicks on West Scrape, but the redshank and shoveler chicks have remained in deep cover around North Hide. Also on the Scrape now have 133 common tern nests, while both black and Arctic terns have been reported passing through this week. At least six little gulls and a pair of Mediterranean gulls add some interest too.

The first southbound spotted redshanks are beginning to appear on the Scrape, while the knot, sanderling, dunlins and turnstones seen this week are probably still heading north. Up to 155 black-tailed godwits are presumably non breeding birds. The biggest surprise on the Scrape today was a black swan. This is an Australian species, but is widely kept in captivity and there are several free-flying birds in the UK, so they do sometimes appear at Minsmere. It arrived just too late for its moment of TV stardom though.

The return of cooler, damper weather today has kept the hobbies, dragonflies and butterflies out of sight after several good displays in recent days, but bearded tits have been quite prominent at Island Mere despite the wind. Sightings of adders are becoming less frequent, but the Suffolk Amphibian and Reptile Group are continuing to track them using the BBC radio transmitters, so we're finding out lots about the movements of these snakes and will keep you posted.

Finally, during the beautiful sunshine on Thursday I took a few reflection photos that seem to fit nicely with the theme of this post.

Reflections by Ian Barthorpe