Hello,
Welcome to another summary of what has been seen at Titchwell over the past couple of days.
Car park / visitor centre / fen trail
With the elders in berry and the brambles ripening a walk around the car park and the sheltered areas is always worth a visit. This week the bushes have been full of blackcaps including lots of juveniles which is encouraging to see. Flycatching amongst the scrub are numerous chiffchaffs and a careful search revealed a couple of willow warblers as well. Lesser whitethroats and common whitethroats were also enjoying the berries.
Bullfinch, Les Bunyan
At least one turtle dove has been sighted in the scrub that lies between the car park and the fen hide.
Grazing Marsh
Whinchat and stonechats have been observed on the brambles and fence lines.
Reedbed
The daily bittern sightings continue to occur however two lucky visitors watched two bitterns fly around the reedbed on Thursday afternoon. Their observation of the birds suggest one was a juvenile, however we are aren’t sure where this juvenile is from as much as we would like to be Titchwell youngster.
We all love to see the bearded tits, and at this time of year the best place to look for them is from island hide watching the base of the reeds. Here you should be able to watch them hope from reed to reed.
Bearded tit, Les Bunyan
Freshmarsh
It has been another interesting week balancing the water levels with gale force winds and rain predicted however they are now looking pretty good again, which is reflected in a good variety of waders passing through and showing incredibly close in front of island hide and the west bank path. Here is brief summary of some daily wader counts:
25th August
80 Knot, 31 Bar-tailed godwits, 1 sanderling, 2 spotted redshanks, 43 ruff, 1 common sandpiper
26th August
1 curlew sandpiper, 2 little stint, 1 wood sandpiper (calling overhead), 2 spotted redshanks, 30 ringed plover, whimbrel, 15 black-tailed godwits, 25 ruff, 50 dunlin
27th August
1 green sandpiper, 1 little stint, 3 curlew sandpiper, 2 little ringed plover, 56 dunlin, 269 lapwing, 37 ruff, 3 curlew, 375 black-tailed godwit, 3 snipe
Other highlights on Freshmarsh this week have included up to 17 spoonbills, juvenile grey wagtail, 2 Caspian gulls, 91 lesser black-backed gulls, 2 yellow-legged gulls and 20 Mediterranean gulls
Little stint, Les Bunyan
Beach and sea
A spot of sea watching has occurred this week with small flocks of common scoter heading west, 5 great crested grebes and several arctic skuas and great skuas seen.
With northerly winds forecast this weekend a spot of sea watching may well be worthwhile.
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