Another mild week with mixed weathers, there is even a hint of November in the air today, but its still nice and sunny, a bit windy though.
This week has seen a steady flow of winter migrants, mostly winter thrushes, but also siskins and redpolls flying over. The siskin flock has broken up a little now but there are still upwards of 30 birds present near the reception.
The classic fen birds are still very much present and on show regularly. I spent five minutes at the reception hide this morning before work and managed to see a large male bittern creeping about in the reeds to the left of the hide, it then flew across the broad at eye level in fantastic sunlight giving superb views. To top this sighting off I then saw a kingfisher fly across the broad followed by a water rail while bearded tits were pinging in the reedbed to the right of the hide, a very nice five minutes and set me up for a day of work.
Marsh harriers have been performing well when they come into the roost, best seen from three in the afternoon, we have an organised count this Sunday so exact figures will be available for next weeks update. A juvenile male hen harrier was seen over the meadows on Saturday afternoon, the bird took me by surprise as it was quartering the meadow trail fields showing very nicely, hopefully it will spend winter with us.
Water pipits have been showing periodically from Fen Hide, although not easy to see once on the ground, also from Fen Hide this week were two jack snipe. There have also been at least 12 common snipe present from Fen and Tower Hide, one of which was bobbing just like a jack snipe the whole time I watched it.
The woodland has currently got a large roving tit flock containing all usual tit species including marsh, also in these flock are goldcrests and treecreepers. Now that many of the leaves have come off of the trees light is once more filtering through the woodland making viewing far easier.
The marshes at Buckenham and Cantley are still a little behind on numbers due to the mild weather, that said there are still 600 pink footed geese and at least 60 whitefronts along with over 900 lapwing, a pair of stonechat and at least one water pipit. The wigeon numbers are still very low with around 500 birds present, a cold spell should see an increase. The bean geese are yet to appear, although there was a report of a possible two yesterday, it feels a bit too early but hopefully wont be long now.
Otters have been seen from reception on Wednesday and Thursday, showing very well for over an hour on Wednesday. Other non avian news includes a stoat and a weasel along sandy wall. Insects are still in evidence around the fen with common darters still in small numbers, a late migrant hawker was also seen on Thursday. A small number of red admirals are still being seen feeding on ivy around the reserve, but no other butterflies logged this week.
It looks like we will get a drop in temperatures over the weekend, with associated rain, but then temperatures are due to increase again next week. We may see an increase in winter birds over the weekend, the feeders are certainly being well used at present due to the drop in temperature.