What a start to the year! New Year’s Day heralded a lovely clear dry day, which brought a record number of visitors to the reserve and now the floods!
New Year’s Day “Tick and Twitch Walk” was as popular as ever. There was lots of talking as well as lots of birds! You didn’t have to go far to see them. Ann Miles took this lovely photo of a Robin entertaining the visitors in the V.C. garden. There were also siskins in the car park.
The wigeon whistled at us, as we walked up the Heronry Trail, looking very smart with their yellow foreheads and their small blue-grey bills. The Cormorants were much in evidence nest building in the trees. Alan, who led the walk, explained how we probably have 2 sub species of cormorant at the pits. The original inland cormorant and then the coastal one that realised nesting inland was a good idea! It was great to see and hear a selection of thrushes, particularly the song thrushes, which have been very quiet recently. Redwings were in the trees on the boardwalk to the Kingfisher hide, as usual never still, and, of course, blackbirds, which still are not visiting my garden much at the moment. I like to think the reason is that there are still lots of berries and other food out on the reserve.
Another bird lacking from my garden is the chaffinch, so it was great to see a large flock (is it a charm?) enjoying the seed in the arable field with the yellowhammers. Shovelers were more difficult to see, only one showing up as we came back to Bill’s Bench. Then finally a family of about 10 long tailed tits flew over the gate, as we returned to the visitor centre for a well-earned hot drink. All in all, 43 bird species were seen or heard.
The Botanical society of Britain for many years has been running a New Year’s Day survey of plants in flower – New Year Plant Hunt – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (bsbi.org). On the morning’s walk 7 species were found in flower, Anthemis nobilis, Salix caprea, Bellis perennis, Corylus avellana, Lamium album, Poa annua and Stellaria media. What was flowering in your garden? I have my earliest ever snowdrop flowering.
Between all the rain we have had, last Thursday was a lovely sunny day for the first work party of the year. When you next go down to the ‘Bus Stop’, have a look at Grainne’s Mound and on the opposite side of the path. We weeded and remodelled the area. Please walk over the mounds to firm up the area for the solitary bees, which will be emerging in spring. We also prepared the nursery in the yard for hedgelings, which arrive next week and will be planted out by the fence on the lower meadow in due course.
This hedge planting may depend on the retreat of the floods. I attempted to walk the meadow trail from home today (Saturday) to the Visitor Centre. The water is over the boardwalk and Cloudy Pit is oozing onto the top meadow. I met a man, who has lived here all his life and never seen it so flooded before.
Best wishes for your wildlife sightings 2024.
Ann