Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I know I'm a little late with the best wishes, but I've had a couple of days off!
So how have you all been? Recovered from the Christmas break?

So before we start looking forward to 2012 I wanted to spend a couple of minutes thinking about some of the 'best bits' from the reserve last year!

So in no particular order (and admittedly these are the best bits that I like, so feel free to add your own) here are the reserve best bits from 2011:

• Two bitterns on the reserve - like this one that was showing off in January 2011 
   Fab picture by Cherry Wathall
  
• We 'met' some of the staff and volunteers in the 'People of Rye Meads' blog series
• We had TWO pairs of kingfishers breeding on the reserve! That's the first time in 10 years we had two pairs! They managed to successfully raise three brood between them.
   Fab kingfisher picture taken by Peter Hewitt
  
• We had a great watervole season! They successfully raised young, and showed off all season! We even made them a feeding station!
   Great watervole picture by Keith Bedford
  
• The kestrels successfully raised 4 young, in the box on the pylon in the car park
  
• We had lovely views of a black necked grebe!
   This fabulous picture was taken by Margaret Nesbit
  
• We had our first ever summer bittern *silly alert* For the whole story check out the whole blog here (please do it is quite funny! Alhtough this is a silly story, we have a serious point - bitterns are rare, but due to the fantastic work of the RSPB and other organisations these fabulous birds are doing well).
  
• We had our first live music events at the reserve - Kate Doubleday performed
• We have re-done our garden at the front of the visitor centre, it looks great!
• We released about 1000 rudd into the lagoons on the reserve

   Picture by Keith Bedford

• We had a very bold fox showing off

   Great picture by Keith Bedford
  
  
  
  
  
  
  So what were your highlights of 2011? Any thing different? Did you see something new?