After a cold but beautiful two days to celebrate our Festive Fun weekend, today dawned dull and wet. It clearly had an effect on some of the wildlife too, with fewer sightings reported by our guides until it began to dry up.
Of course, even during the heaviest rain, there is always something to see at Minsmere, even if it is only the constant toing and froing of tits and finches on the feeders. You never what you might see whilst watching the feeders either - perhaps a nuthatch, great spotted woodpecker or goldfinch on the feeders, or a jay in the nearby trees.
Among the weekend highlights, the Bewick's swans have again been seen at both Island Mere and East Scrape today, and nine avocets remain on East Scrape, while kingfishers, marsh harriers, bullfinches and marsh tits have also been seen. Other weekend highlights that haven't appeared yet today included nine whooper swans on the Scrape, a merlin in the reedbed and siskins in the woods. Saturday had also proved productive for mammals spotting with a red fox walking on the ice at Bittern Hide, a mole emerging from its burrow on Whin Hill, otter at Island Mere, plus red deer, muntjac, rabbit and grey squirrel.
The major star of the weekend for many visitors, though, was the incredibly obliging bittern at Island Mere. Regular readers of these blogs will know that our bitterns have often thrown away the rule book and forgotten that they are supposed to be shy, difficult to see species. Not so at Island Mere for the last four or five days. At least one bittern has been on view almost continuously during that time, catching some impressively large roach in the ditch in front of the hide. It's not been alone either, as both grey heron and otter have been taking advantage of the fishing bonanza.
Our Facebook and Twitter pages have been awash with some amazing photos of these bitterns, including this one by regular contributor Les Cater.
While the bitterns may have been stealing the show, I've already featured them in our species of the week series, so this week's selection from our 70 species to spot challenge is a once common species that is sadly far less familiar than it once was, but is always guaranteed to brighten up a winter day: the lapwing.
Lapwings are one my favourite birds. I remember watching large flocks twisting and turning, flickering black and white over nearby fields from my bedroom window when I was growing up. When walking the dog in the summer I enjoyed the amazing butterfly-like display flights and hauntingly beautiful "pee-wit" calls of several nesting pairs. It's this call that gives them their oft-still used country name of peewit. Sadly, I'd now be surprised to see even the occasional winter flock in those same fields.
The rapid decline in lapwing numbers over the last 40 years or so is not isolated either. Skylarks, corn buntings, yellowhammers and tree sparrows all bred in those same Shropshire fields in the early 1980s. All have gone now, victims of our changing countryside. Roads and housing have isolated habitats, boggy corners of fields were drained, farming has become more mechanised and many crops are now planted in the autumn, so are too tall for nesting birds come the spring.
Luckily, it's not all doom and gloom, as many of these birds have benefited from recent changes to the way farms are managed with wildlife in mind, thanks in part to RSPB-led research and the examples that we've set on our Cambridgeshire farm.
Lapwings have also benefited from careful management of our nature reserves to create the perfect conditions for them. At Minsmere, several pairs breed on the Levels, and the margins of the Scrape, and it's a joy to sit in North Hide in March and watch them displaying close to the hide.
In winter, large flocks of lapwings also visit the UK from northern Europe, so you may see them in farmland near you. Here, they can be seen feeding on the Scrape, but also on the drier grassland north of the visitor centre. These birds will often feed surprisingly close to the path, as seen by these photos, allowing visitors to enjoy the amazing colours: shiny bottle-green upperparts, black-breastband, delicate black-and white face with long wispy black crest, bronze-purple patch at the bend of the wing, and beautiful cream undertail. Far from the black-and-white birds of my childhood!
As well as peewit, lapwings are also called green plovers. Like other plovers, they have short bills for a wading bird. Unlike curlews or snipe, they don't probe deeply into soft mud, but instead feed by picking invertebrates from the soil surface, feeding on beetles, crickets, earthworms, etc. They are often accompanied by flocks of starlings and winter thrushes, or even by golden plovers, so keep your open for flocks of lapwings this winter, both at Minsmere and in fields or wetlands closer to home.