Good afternoon!

How are you all?

It's been a lovely weekend so far, have you had a chance to get out and enjoy some fresh air?

I thought I would share with you some of the wildlife highlights of the weekend (so far!)...

The star of the whole weekend has been the merlin

   Mike Hughes took this picture of the merlin on 11 November.

 The merlin has been seen around the reserve occasionally over the whole weekend.

 We've also had fabulous views of other birds of prey - sparrowhawk, kestrel, marsh harrier, peregrine, barn owl, and buzzard.

 

 On the scrapes we've had a variety of waders including golden plover, dunlin, redshank, curlew, snipe, and black tailed godwit.

There's been a variety of wildfowl out and about as well - pochard, pintail, teal (over 400 were counted on Saturday!), tufted duck, wigeon, shoveler, and mallard.

Keep an eye out for smaller birds too - we had lovely views of redwings over by the woodland, stonechats, kingfisher, cettis warber!

 We had a great white egret fly over the reserve from the sea wall, and went off over the top of the woodland!

 

 

  Les Harrison got some fabulous shots yesterday...

 The other stars have been a pair of bearded tits over by the Dragonfly Pools. We've had amazing views!

 

Hope you've enjoyed your weekend!