I was out this morning doing the WEBS (Wetland Bird Survey) count on the reserve. It’s been so dry recently that there aren’t a huge abundance of wetland birds around, but even so wildfowl numbers are noticeably starting to build. Counts for the areas holding wetland birds were:
Big Otmoor: 96 greylag geese
Reedbed (Southern Phase): 43 mallard, 19 teal, 2 wigeon, 2 mute swans, 1 cormorant, 2 shoveler
Reedbed (Northern Phase): 58 teal, 1 mute swan, 1 coot, 17 wigeon, 6 mallard, 1 cormorant, 1 moorhen, 60 black headed gulls
Greenaways: 47 mallard, 1 grey heron, 3 snipe
An overly large peregrine was reported this morning, moving from Ashgrave to Big Otmoor and three flocks of ~150 fieldfare in total passed over the reserve mid-morning.