A very mild week with almost warm sunny spells, apart from Thursday when it decided to rain a lot to coincide with the weekly work party.
Highlights from the fen included nine pochard and six tufted duck, so far they are this years peak counts. A bittern was seen on Tuesday morning, bearded tits have been heard regularly from the fen trail, while kingfishers have been seen from the sluice area. It has been the first week for a very long time without an otter sighting, they are hopefully busy preparing for this years youngsters. Marsh harriers have been busy skydancing, the females have been upping their anti as soon as a male appears on site, giving some impressive aerial displays as well as giving all sorts of interesting calls. A pair of goosander have been seen on and off for a few weeks now and this week they were still present, but only seen once on Monday afternoon. Surlingham Church Marsh held a female scaup on Saturday, this is a particularly good bird for the valley, especially considering the mild conditions.
The oddest sighting of the week was when a white-fronted goose decided to land with the greylags right in front of reception hide. The goose arrived, preened for about half an hour and then flew off letting those in the hide get especially good views of a usually shy species. (See image to the right)
The woodland has a lot of fungi on show at present, with the scarlet elf caps stealing the show; we have created a pile of deadwood by the woodland fingerpost, where there are at least four species of fungi present, hopefully in the future months this will also be a great place for grass snakes and other reptiles and amphibians, especially with a new pond being dug so close by.
Insects are just beginning to emerge, on Wednesday I saw my first hoverfly of the year, a marmalade fly, also the yellow dandelion like plant coltsfoot has spread its petals for the first time adding a splash of colour to sandy wall. The emergence of coltsfoot usually is an indicator that the first brimstone butterflies of the year are on their way and currently looking out of the window this afternoon would be a good time to go looking!
Buckenham and Cantley have seen a decrease in number of geese again this week, however they have seen an increase in classic late winter/spring species such as curlew, black tailed godwit and shelduck, it will not be long now before we start to see returning waders such as redshank and oystercatcher back for their summer stay. Skylarks are already in full song adding to that change of season feel.
Over the next week I would expect that if weather conditions remain similar, I would expect the volume and number of birds singing to increase, the first butterflies will start to emerge and maybe even early mallard ducklings will be seen. I would expect the first chiffchaff to appear any day soon, but the true migrants of spring are still quite far off at present