Notice to all visitors – Island Mere hide will be closed on Tuesday 8th August for repair work, apologies for any inconvenience caused.
This week we’ve had a few surprise visitors to the reserve, starting with four cattle egrets on the Levels to the south of the reserve, then a little surge of red veined darter dragonflies around the South Scrape, and today a glossy ibis briefly on the scrape.
The scrape has been beautifully rich this week, with over a hundred avocet, black tailed godwit, tens dozens of dunlin, a handful of ruff and a couple of ringed plovers. On West Scrape it’s been a good challenge to identify the different types of sandpipers – with common, wood, green and curlew species present.
The calmer weather on Sunday meant the reedbeds were still and made it far easier to spot the family groups of bearded tits – around 20 at Island Mere and another six along the North Wall. Bitterns have been a little harder to spot, but still regularly feeding in front of Bittern Hide. Hobbies have been hunting right up to dusk over the woodland, with up to seven seen together. Sand martins are feeding over the dunes and scrape in preparation for their long journey to Africa, hundred of them having nested on the cliffs at Dunwich this year.
The Visitor Centre has been one of the best places for insects this week, with pointy-bum bees, white admiral, silver-washed fritillary (pictured) and purple hairstreak butterflies, and the fabulous hummingbird hawkmoth.
We've also added some larger residents to the scrape this week - Konik ponies and highland cows. The cattle are wonderful hairy horned bulldozers great for clearing vegetation, whilst the ponies are gentle grazers and keep the grasses short. Together the two species are making room for the influx of ducks, geese and wading birds we see as they begin their autumn migration.