It has been a week with very cold temperatures throughout, both night and day. The waterways across the fen have remained about 95% frozen solid so the wildfowl have been packed into the remaining 5% of unfrozen water, this has been in front of Reception Hide.
The highlight of the week was when five tundra bean geese landed on the ice in front of the reception, this could be the first confirmed record for Strumpshaw Fen so I’m glad I managed to get a quick picture. The ‘tundra’ form of bean goose differs from the ‘taiga’ bean goose that we see at Buckenham by being less stocky and having a smaller bill with an orange band on it, rather than all orange as in ‘taiga’. I believe that the British ornithologists union (BOU) will adopt the world bird list, which has the two forms of bean goose as separate species.
Apart from the goose excitement this week has seen many of our resident species struggling with the cold frozen conditions, this does sometimes allow for good views of species as the will to survive takes over the instinct to hide from humans. Hopefully the cold period will pass at the weekend and a thaw will occur, this is very good news to some of our more susceptible species such as bearded tits. So bearded tits have been showing well in the Fen Hide area as well as the Lackford Run. Kingfishers have been present on the river throughout the week, at least one bittern has been seen flying over the reedbed in search of water. On Monday a total of 24 marsh and a female hen harrier came into the roost, viewable from Fen hide, also present was one water pipit and a barn owl.
In the woodland and around reception the bullfinches have been quite obvious as they have been feeding on the fresh tree buds and singing from the cherry trees.
The paths are all open and at present they are in good condition due to the fact they have been frozen all week. This weekend the weather is due to warm up a little so the paths could be quite muddy along the riverbank and Lackford Run, I would recommend wellington boots to be on the safe side.
This weekend (and Monday) is the RSPB’s big garden birdwatch so make sure you look at your feeders at some point this weekend and take part in a huge dataset created by citizen science. Please see the RSPB website for more details and for submitting your sightings, with this cold weather you could well find something quite unexpected like a waxwing, blackcap or even a major rarity, it does happen most years!