Glossy Ibis by Ron McIntyre
This week’s star bird was the fine looking glossy ibis. This rather lost bird has been finding the Tower Hide scrape much to its liking throughout the week. It has been feeding well on the muddy edges, usually on the opposite side of the broad, but occasionally comes and rests on the spit, it also flew onto Reception Hide island for a quick snooze on Monday afternoon.
An osprey has been seen regularly throughout the week, occasionally fishing from Tower Hide, but also disappearing to Rockland, Buckenham and Cantley at times.
On a loop of the fen trail today I managed to see bearded tits from Reception and Fen Hide, kingfisher from tower hide as well as the glossy ibis, 15 ruff, three garganey, a water rail and a green sandpiper. The wildfowl are beginning to move now with shovelers beginning to make themselves known, we often get a good peak of shoveler in September, let us know how many you have seen!
Willow emerald damselflies have been increasing in number with this hot sunny weather and at least three to five second brood swallowtails have been seen from the trails in good conditions.
The birds are beginning to increase in number and volume as we have now passed through the quietest part of the summer. We should expect wader passage to continue, goldcrests to begin to increase and the wildfowl numbers to increase in the next couple of weeks too.
The trails are all dry and in good condition, the water level has nearly reached its target level so the mud should stay for a couple of months now, unless we flood or it rains very heavily (as seems to happen most autumns!). The water level is dropped to this level every year so that we can get into the reedbed and get the management carried out; it also replicates the historical levels, which benefits the very important fen flora including milk parsley.