Wet, mild, and very wind to end, just about sums up this weeks weather! It has not quite decided which season it should be at the moment, so unsurprisingly the wildlife is also beginning to feel a little confused.
Sightings from the fen this week have included a hen harrier, a juvenile male seen Monday to Wednesday. This is the first hen harrier we have seen since October so hopefully it will stick around for a little longer for more people to enjoy. Bitterns have been seen throughout the week from all of the hides, someone thought they may have seen as many as four different birds in one morning at Fen Hide. Water pipits have been seen from Fen and Tower Hides, the trick to seeing these is to follow the marsh harriers as they are quartering the reedbed, they quite regularly flush the pipits from the cut plots so listen carefully for the clinching call as views are always challenging. 228 teal have been on Tower Hide pool for much of the week along with smaller numbers of gadwall and shoveler.
The reception area has been attracting siskins, bullfinch, marsh tit, jay, great spotted woodpecker and nuthatch this week. Two redpolls were seen behind Tower Hide on Thursday.
The marsh harriers have started to show subtle hints that the change of season is upon us; females are parallel flying while leg dangling and have been sorting out their dominance, this is most usually seen by males when they arrive too. Some males have also returned and have started to build up their displaying on the calm mornings in particular. Our cross-dressing male marsh harrier, which I am naming Ziggy, has certainly been busy trying to impress the females by picking up sticks and instigating some talon grappling, giving away his true identity, the photo above shows how much like a female he looks.
Otters have been seen most days this week, including 2 young individuals seen together on at least three occasions. A weasel has been seen regularly near the new pond dipping platform too.
Buckenham is still attracting good numbers of wildfowl but the taiga bean geese have now long gone, the last confirmed sighting was 10 January. 52 white-fronted and 380 pink-footed geese were present on Wednesday as well as 785 wigeon, 910 lapwing and 204 golden plover. Other sightings included a water pipit along the track to the hide, two peregrines and a small flock of barded tits.
The paths are beginning to dry out thanks to this wind, although a flood alert for the river has just been issued so all could change quite quickly. At this point I usually say bring your wellies if you want to do the full loop; and after last weeks auto correct error I will recheck the spelling of that before publishing! The path to Fen Hide is accessible with walking boots and the meadow trail diversion is still in place, but wellies are near essential for this route.
A final plea to take part in this weekends big garden birdwatch, just record the birds in your garden for an hour at some point this weekend, check out the website for full details of how to take part.