Our wonderful volunteer guides have had a busy day today. It's not often that we can fill both our blackboard and What's About sheet during the winter months, but there has been a superb variety of wildlife, and for the most part it's been under a beautiful blue winter sky.
Photo by Hannah Jones
It's not just been birds that they've been reporting either. Mammals have featured prominently with otters seen at both Bittern Hide and Island Mere, a stoat near South Hide, and both red deer and muntjac at Bittern Hide. If you are leaving the reserve at dusk it's worth keeping your eyes peeled for badgers as Matt saw one around the visitor centre after dark last night. Perhaps more surprisingly, several common darters are still around Island Mere and Bittern Hide where I also saw a very late migrant hawker catching midges on Thursday afternoon.
Talking of surprising sightings, a visitor has just reported swallows flying over the car park. With memories of last November's cliff swallow flooding back I rushed out to check, but no, these were "just" our common-or-garden barn swallows. Nevertheless, it was good to see four swallows still around in mid November.
In contrast, it's also been a good day for seeing some of our winter visitors. Pick of the bunch must be woodcock, with one seen near Bittern Hide this morning and two watched flying in from the sea this afternoon. Eight whooper swans flying along the coast this morning were also notable, as was a goosander seen flying south over the Scrape. A little more expected have been further sightings of great skuas and goldeneyes offshore, as well as gannets, common scoters, red-throated divers and great crested grebes.
Nearby, the Dartford warbler continues to roam around the gorse bushes in the dunes in the company of seven stonechats and a couple of meadow pipits.
The North Bushes and South Belt woods have been good places to look for both resident and wintering woodland birds including small flocks of redwings, fieldfares, siskins and goldcrests, several bullfinches and the more expected marsh, coal and long-tailed tits, treecreepers, jays and goldfinches. A tawny owl was heard in South Belt mid morning too, having no doubt been woken by a roving tit flock.
Tawny owl by Jon Evans
There are still 13 avocets on East Scrape - a notable count for mid November - while other waders on the Scrape include 47 black-tailed godwits, at least 18 snipe, three redshanks and six dunlins. At least 100 lapwings are around, but tend to feed on the field north of the visitor centre during the day, along with a couple of curlews. There were a late spotted redshank and a bar-tailed godwit yesterday too.
South Scrape has been the place to be for gull watchers this week. More are great black-backed gulls (up to 250), with smaller numbers of lesser black-backed, herring and black-headed gulls, while keen eyed gull-watchers have also spotted the odd yellow-legged, Caspian and common gulls among them. The ducks, in comparison, have not attracted any unusual visitors yet, although numbers continue to increase.
It's been busy at the reedbed hides too. Several marsh harriers are patrolling the reedbeds and both sparrowhawk and kestrel are regular. So too are bitterns, bearded tits, water rails and Cetti's warblers. It's probably the kingfishers that are stealing the show in the reedbed though, with regular sightings at Bittern Hide, Island Mere, North Wall and Wildlife Lookout. Huge flocks of cormorants have also been resting and bathing on the mere, peaking at almost 300 and making quite a din. Last week's great white egret seems to have moved up the coast to Dingle Marshes though.
Cormorants on Island Mere