A jack snipe or two have been showing intermittently from Nettley's hide this week - see Gary's photo was taken on tuesday. A few common snipe have also been using the same area, either providing useful comparitive views or simply confusing the issue, depending on your point of view. Tip - jack snipe are smaller, shorter billed and even more secretive than common snipe, but often have a peculiar 'personal trampoline' feeding action (you'll get the idea if you see one). Water levels on the brooks have risen significantly in the last 5 days, and predictably that has brought with it lots of pintails, shoveler and one or two black-tailed godwits.
Today on the edge of the heath ('the clump'), were lots of common small birds (blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinches, goldcrests) plus about 20 fieldfares, 10 redwings and at least 5 bramblings feeding in the rowan and beech trees. There appears to have been quite an arrival of thrushes in general and fieldfares in particular in the last 24 hrs.
Yesterday - marsh harrier, buzzard and red kite noted, and a pair of ravens flew low over the visitor centre on tuesday morning.