There's just the first touch of autumn in the air now, especially in the early morning. Swallows are grouping up before they start their long journeys home, and the starlings are making their rolling, clicking calls from the rooftops, which is always one of the first signs of the change of season for me.

We've concentrated a lot on our nightjars and hobbies in recent weeks, and although it is generally a quiet period…

 Sadly we have had no sightings and there's been no churring heard for the last two nights. We will monitor again tonight and over the weekend to try to discover if the nightjars are still on site and update over the next few days.

Let's hope for better news.

Since our last public night on Wednesday evening, we have been monitoring the nightjars every night. The good news is they are still here and we really hope they are getting their young ready to fledge - probably over the coming weekend if all has gone well with them.
However, It has been much more difficult to see or hear the birds before darkness recently, and the churring has generally been intermittent and distant…

Now that our hobby pair have fledged their single chick, we are running our last hobby watch of the year on Tuesday 14 August, from 11am - 3pm.
Follow the signs along the Buzzard trail to the watch point (c 600 m).
Please note, the watch will only run in good weather....

Geoff Harries

There is a lot of interest in the Wednesday evening 'nightjar night', at The Lodge so we are going to run two more evenings next week, on Wednesday and Thursday, to try to spread the numbers and make it a better experience for all.
Please note, you can come on any evening, not just our public nights, but please park in front of the barrier as it will be locked at 8 pm.

Thanks and good luck.

Nightjars at The Lodge.

One of the birds on the new heath. Image credit Ben Andrew

We wish to announce the fantastic news that we have a pair of nightjars on the new heath at RSPB The Lodge.

The story started on 3 June, when Neil Bostock, the wind turbine surveyor, was doing one of his regular checks of the site and came across the churring male.

He then saw both birds, clearly intent on using the site for…

We started our first hobby watch today, and have more volunteers offering to be on the rota in the coming weeks. We've only spotted one chick today, so we hope the other youngster is still in the nest but just keeping low.The next session will be on Sunday 22nd between 11 am and approx. 4pm. Just follow the Buzzard (blue) signposted trail across the drive from the shop to get to the hobby watch point.

 Ray Piercy

The…

After our volunteers had spent a lot of time doing watches, today we saw two little white chicks in the hobby nest!
We will set up our hobby watch to show the hobbies bringing up their young in the coming weeks.
Last year we had incredible views of the adults bringing in prey and fighting off the buzzards and squirrels that dared to come close!

This year's male hobby by Ray Piercy

It's quite a relief to be cooling down for a little while, although it's looking likely that the hot weather is returning very soon.

With young birds seemingly everywhere, it looks like the dry spell has been good for our breeding birds. A young song thrush was sitting on the roof opposite my office this morning looking like he was just out of his nest and discovering the world.

We think the hobbies are breeding…

A first for The Lodge!... a purple emperor butterfly was seen and photographed by staff member Donal McCarthy in the main gardens at HQ yesterday. It was seen near the small pond before the gate to the visitor loo's.

The fine, warm and dry weather seems to be helping our butterflies and dragonflies, with lots of them on the wing this month.

Dr. John Dolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh starts out as a human doctor. But once he is taught by his wise old parrot Polynesia how to talk to animals he becomes the most celebrated veterinary doctor in England. Word of his skills spreads and animals across the world send messages asking for his help. So he buys a leaky old ship and, together with his trusty pet-crew of Jip the dog, Chee-Chee the monkey, Dab-Dab the Duck…

Apologies that it's been a while since my last post; I've been away enjoying myself on the lovely Greek island of Leros and searching hard for the limited range of bird species that live there at this time of year!

On arriving back, its great to see the new warden Alan Kett has started, and we warmly welcome Alan to our small team here at The Lodge. We wish him every success in his career here. Alan has worked at RSPB Lakenheath…

With our birds now generally becoming quieter as they tend to their young and harder to see in the dense foliage, insects and invertebrates are becoming more of a focus for many visitors. Cinnabar moths are here in good numbers and several dragonfly species are on the wing, with four-spotted chasers posing well for photographers. On the warmer days, common lizards are often seen along the edge of the trails. They especially…

We had some exciting bird action a little earlier, when a honey buzzard drifted very low across the new heath in front of the Visitor Centre. Our volunteers Dickie and Jan saw it well, along with visiting birder Doug. Despite missing most of the steps leading down from my office to dash over, the bird was sadly not relocated and then the rain started to fall heavily.

A great sighting for The Lodge!

As part of the Greensand Country Heritage Lottery Fund project to promote heathland on the Greensand Ridge, we've just opened our short heathland path at The Lodge, which takes you close to the heather, gorse and broom and you can see the many invertebrates and insects that live on the heath. We have a series of chalkboards along the route with some info and facts on what to look out for on the heath.
The path starts…

Great news, after a brief sighting on Sunday, a spotted flycatcher was seen in several areas around the Gatehouse this morning. No more sightings this afternoon, but it's really good news to know at least one bird has arrived back at The Lodge.

The Lodge is looking at it's blooming best at the moment (in my opinion!)- with all of the trees in lush full leaf, stunning azaleas in a variety of colourful blooms in the gardens, and sheep sorrel spreading like red ink across Sandy Ridge.

In the warm May sunshine, the first cinnabar moths have been seen this weekend, there are good numbers of small copper butterflies on the wing, while common lizards are basking on…

It was an extremely busy Bank Holiday weekend here, and such a nice one with hot sunshine through-out. A few more of those please! We had our Dawn Chorus event on Sunday, with cuckoo, hobby and a good variety of warblers being the highlights for the early risers.

During the day, we had the excitement of a red deer charging across the drive, crashing through the foliage near the Visitor Centre and disappearing across the new…

I've had some great pictures of The Lodge bluebells from Ray Piercy and Jan Murphy this week, so better post them while they are still blooming! Jan also sent the grey heron by the pond at the gardens, looking like it's taking a shower with the fountain in front!

The firecrest hasn't been seen (that we know of) since Wednesday, and I've not bumped into anyone who's seen the crossbills as yet today, but they were…

Exciting news, after some good descriptions yesterday, a group of five crossbills have been confirmed on the new heath today! Apart from the odd fly-over birds, we haven't had any here for several years, so great to see them back again.

I thought we'd end the working week with a few stunning insect images taken on the heathland here by Alan Burrows, along with a very quirky bird-a 'pink' magpie!, taken by Trevor Boyd from his house in Royston. I've searched and there are a few reports of these from around the country, so it's not totally unusual, but certainly strange!.

The lingering two bramblings finally left us on Sunday 22 April…

I'm pleased to bring the very welcome news that the first hobby was reported back on the reserve and has been seen several times over the last few days. Let's hope that they choose the same tree to raise their young in again and we can set up the hobby watch station in a few weeks time to show everyone the exciting comings and goings around the nest site.

Hobby at the Lodge 2017 Image credit Rob Gilmore

The last…