A largely pleasant week of sunny spells although Wednesday will be remembered for its very heavy rain, which flooded nearby roads and topped up the fen a bit!
We still have the great white egret in residence, it has remained very faithful to Tower Hide Broad for the past 7 days and is still happily fishing there as I write today. Also on the broad at Tower hide are eight or so ruff as well as three eclipse plumage garganey, always a bit of a challenge at this time of the year. An osprey was also seen from there briefly this morning too.
Fen Hide has produced regular kingfisher sightings as well as bitterns, water rail and bearded tits. Up to four little egrets have been feeding furiously in front of the hide too, they appear to dance while chasing the fish, raising their wings up and looking very smart, whatever their reasons for this, it seems to work.
Other birds of note this week have included two hobbys, a good movement of buzzards, my personal star birds have to be the two sandwich terns which were seen fishing on Tuesday morning, this is my second record in five years.
Away from the fen at Buckenham, the pools have been attracting some waders; greenshank, green sandpiper, common sandpiper, ruff, avocet, snipe, ringed and little ringed plovers all seen this week. A peregrine was seen hunting on Monday morning and the first wigeon are also starting to return, with two seen on Tuesday, this adds to the autumnal feel.
In non avian news we had two swallowtail butterfly sightings this week, on Monday and Thursday, both seen along the riverbank not far from Tower Hide. Willow emerald damselflies are also at, or nearing their peak. I passed the boardwalk area this afternoon and counted at least 11 of these scarce damselflies, one of which posed nicely for the picture above. The buddleia near reception held hummingbird hawk moth and a hornet hoverfly yesterday afternoon.
With continuing south westerly winds predicted next week, I would not expect a large amount of migration to be taking place, however house martins and swallows will be heading south in small numbers, waders should continue to be seen passing through and there is always the possibility of a whinchat at Buckenham at this time of the year if you are very lucky and always keep a look out for an osprey.