Hello again
I am finally back from my holidays and training courses etc and it has been a while since I posted a blog so sorry about that but I should be able to get back in to the swing of posting now.
Well you were in for some treats in October (that will teach me to go on holiday).
An Osprey flew over on 6th, 7 whooper swan landed on lagoon 1 for a few minutes on 11 October frustrating a few who were on site but missed their brief stop over, a short eared owl spent a day looking thoroughly depressed sitting in a bush in the rain at the back of draper on 13th and snipe numbers increased to 153 on lagoon 1 on 20 October but then staggeringly 235 were counted on lagoon 1 and the back part of the meadow on 19th an amazing count!!! Thanks to our reserves ecologist Graham White for that count along with 4 jack snipe.
I was back for a couple of days and luckily caught up with the 4 bearded tit which were showing really well near the Ashby hide on 18th but missed the great grey shrike on the same day. The male pintail continues to show well on lagoon1 and a peregrine was sitting forlornly on a pylon in the rain Sunday 20th. The water voles continue to work their way tirelessly through the apples provided on the platform offering great views.
Regular winter visitors are also starting to show up with redwing on the 13th and 19th and a flock of 30+ fieldfare on 21st. A more unusual winter visitor was a fly over brambling on the 17th.
You will have noticed the volunteers have been hard at work cutting the vegetation on the draper area in order to allow us to carry out a levelling survey in this area last week before contractors start work re landscaping this area to create much better scrape and wader habitat.
If you have not seens Joans blog from earlier today just a heads up that we may be closed on Monday if this storm is as bad as forcast.
Well that was a quick round up of everything i missed!
Thanks, its good to be back with you