A week consisting of typical April weather, mild and sunny days interspersed with cold winds and heavy showers, there was even a pretty impressive thunderstorm one evening.
It has been another good week for unusual species on the reserve, with the penduline tit taking up the star position. The penduline tit has been showing well on occasion just after the sluice and at the viewpoint before Tower Hide, however it has also been seen at Fen Hide and half way down the Lackford Run all in the same day! Other highlights included up to three firecrests, two Mediterranean gulls and a little gull.
The migration gates are now open with many chiffchaff, willow warbler, blackcap and sedge warblers all singing from around the reserve now. In the air there are large numbers of hirrundines with 80 swallows and 40 sand martins moving through on Thursday with the odd house martin within the groups.
The male bitterns have started booming, with one individual booming throughout the day already, while the marsh harriers are performing superbly over the reedbed, coming quite close to the hides on occasions too. Bearded tits have been seen from Fen Hide and are almost certainly busy building their nests now.
Non avian highlights include good views of Chinese water deer in the meadows, a stoat, grass snake and the first real emergence common lizards. Butterflies are still relatively few in number until the sun really shines then brimstone, peacock small tortoiseshell and comma can all be seen. The mining bees have been busy along the sandy wall, most visible by the bench at the new pond dipping platform.
All paths are open and passable, however the rain and flooding on Thursdays tide have left the paths quite slippery and muddy in places. At this time of the year the sun dries out the paths very quickly so hopefully they will improve over the next week or so.
Over the next week I should think that the numbers of migrants will continue to increase, sedge warblers will become more obvious within the reedbed, the first garden warbler and reed warblers might appear as well as an increase in swallows and martins. There should also be an emergence of insects if the temperatures increase a little.