A very mild start to the week, with southerly winds followed by Barney, the first depression of the late autumn period; gusts of 50mph+ were recorded in the area. The end of the week has seen a drop in temperatures and it looks like that is set to continue through the weekend and then due to rise again next week.
Despite the strong southerly winds, winter birds did continue to arrive. Redwings and fieldfares are much easier to see now along with the flock of around 60 siskins in the reception area. The path between the reception and the pond dipping platform is always worth a look as there have been regular winter thrushes, goldcrests, treecreeper and other regular tits present all week.
The top sightings of the week were a goosander that briefly carried out a bit of fishing in front of reception;three water pipits Thursday. The water pipits are just over the river at the moment, but are viewable from the sluice beyond Tower Hide, with patience they can be heard calling and occasionally seen when they land on the scrub in the area. I have a rent a warden walk this coming Tuesday and one of target species is jack snipe, so after a five minute search on Thursday I found three of these great birds, hopefully Liz and co will see some on Tuesdays walk too!
The woodland is still very much alive with birds, the tit flocks are growing in size and increasing in number of species. A good walk through the woods should result in all tit species, nuthatch, treecreeper, bullfinch, siskin and redpoll as well as the winter thrushes. A similar set of species can be seen on the all new and improved feeding station by the reception, this is certainly a great place to be on a nice sunny day.
For the past month we have had a rather tame young grey heron lurking around the trail, he has been nicknamed Horatio! We should be able to see him change from a youngster into his more regal plumage over the coming months. So keep an eye out for Horatio on your travels around the fen, he can usually be found along the riverbank, particularly in the sluice area.
The winter ‘big four’ continue to be seen around the fen with bittern, otter and bearded tit sightings on a near daily basis. Marsh harrier numbers have dropped throughout the day, but are still coming in to roost in impressive numbers. On Sunday, 35 marsh harriers were seen coming in to roost, this was made all the better by a peregrine hunting over the fen causing them to get up and investigate it, at one point we had 26 marsh harriers in the air at once, quite a spectacle!
Buckenham has seen similar numbers of pink footed and white fronted geese as previous weeks, 500 and 60 respectively. Peregrines are to be found lurking on the gate posts, so a good scan is in order. A red Kite was also seen on Wednesday over the wood amongst the buzzards, two species which would have been top sightings just 10 years ago!.
Last week we had a digger in the fen; this carried out some essential ditch maintenance to increase the water flow around the fen, therefore increasing water quality. The digger also cleared out some areas where reed was encroaching to give better views from the sluices and the bench at the top of sandy wall.
The cold snap we are due to have with associated Northerly winds will hopefully pull in more of our winter species. An increase in redwing, fieldfare, brambling, redpoll and siskin numbers would be good, it should also increase wigeon and goose numbers on the marshes. It is still a bit early but the winds and minus temperatures in Scandinavia it could just possibly bring the bean geese back.