Another incredibly mild week, with night time temperatures holding at 12 degrees! This mild weather has caused a slight lull in winter bird movements.
The highlight (for me) this week was finding an intermediate phase snow goose with the pink footed geese on the 11th at Buckenham, this bird did not hang about for long and quite oddly has not been seen again elsewhere in the country yet. The Ross's goose hybrid with the barnacle geese was discounted and was present at the same time which made for good comparison of size and markings.
The fen speciality species are still present, these include bittern and marsh harrier on Friday, bearded tit and otter on Thursday. Bittern sightings have decreased in the past week; however this is most probably due to the lack of people on the reserve at the moment rather than a decrease in number of birds.
A red kite was seen from reception on Wednesday, this bird has been hanging around in the general area for a few months, but only puts in an appearance at the fen once every two weeks or so.
The woodland has been quite productive for many bird species; a chiffchaff was present on Wednesday along with regular goldcrests, bullfinch, redwings and the occasional redpoll. The siskin flock is still hanging around the reception area and can be seen feeding in the alder trees.
Horatio the grey heron is still on the reserve, quite often feeding on the paths and is still very approachable, he has been seen to catch a good variety of food from the paths including frogs and voles!
At Buckenham and Cantley there are still good numbers of geese present including 900 pink footed geese, 93 white fronted geese as well as the 19 remaining taiga bean geese. There are large numbers of lapwing present across the marshes with up to 5072 seen on Wednesday and 36 ruff feeding within the flocks too. Wigeon numbers topped the 1000 mark for the first time this winter at Buckenham on Wednesday too.
Over the Christmas period it is looking like the temperatures are due to remain mild, but we may be in for some slightly less settled weather. I would imagine that we will not see a large increase in wildfowl numbers unless it gets colder further north. The taiga bean geese are decreasing in number slowly, if the mild weather continues into the new year I would expect them to be heading north very early in January. Waxwings have started to be seen in a few places in East Anglia now, so it is well worth checking the berries around the reserve for this crowd pleasing migrant, it would be great to see them on the reserve again this winter!