Weekly round up- floods, otters and a Bittern

A great final week at work before christmas gave the opportunity to take a few pictures of the regular reedbed specialists.

Firstly a couple of pictures of the Lackford Run during one of the 8 days of flooding the reserve received in the past 2 weeks. for those who know the reserve, we often get complaints that the Lackford run trail is often quite muddy, the photos below show why it gets muddy! this path floods on the medium/high high tide and well below the Environment agency flood warning level, a constant problem during winter and summer too.

This is the path 3hrs before high tide... I decided to close the path!

This young otter was absolutely fantastic, one of my wildlife highlights of the year. I watched it forr about an hour, in which it caught and dismembered 5 fish. I was so close the crunching of scales was clearly heard!

To finish off a nice Bittern in front of reception, this was at the top  of the reeds and then crawled down and started hunting just behind the reed front, always amazing to watch them in hunt mode with the bill half in water head cocked.

Happy Christmas everyone!

The 2013 patch

My patch for 2013

Here is the outline of my patch for the patchbirding competition.
It measures 2.97 square km; although many parts of the above map cannot be walked on ie settling pools at the beet factory these have been included for ease of calculating area in one go.

The patch in more detail;
-All of Strumpshaw Fen, except Bradeston Marsh- standard reedbed species expected here as well as some wildfowl and raptors, hoping to repeat my self found Savis and Marsh warblers of this year for extra points.
-Strumpshaw Wood- woodland species, hoping for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker a would be patch tick.
-Most of Buckenham Marshes- useful while surveying for wildfowl and waders.
-Cantley- as Buckenham- only the riverbank counted in boundary.
-Cantley Beet Factory- could be useful for the all important extra species of waders, good track record of common/scarce species that are tricky even just next door on Cantley marshes (such as Curlew Sandpiper)
-Link road from low road to Buckenham wood- main reason for the inclusion of this is the car park at Buckenham wood, it's a very good vantage point for birds of prey and vis mig etc.
-Rockland Broad- this in the past has produced some diving species that are difficult elsewhere, recently held Red Necked Grebe, Black terns pass through regularly as well as decent Osprey hunting grounds.

So that's it, this year I managed (so far) 148 species, although birding took the back foot while Ruth was pregnant/since Toby has been in this world. Next year I will try and get out more and am looking forward to birding the slightly extended patch to see what it can produce.

A late afternoon stroll around Strumpy

I managed to get out of the house after a long tiring weekend. Amazing evening, nice and cold and calm with a beautiful sunset and 51 species noted.
The Waxwings are still present around sandy wall, some have been there every day now for over a month, far better than last years (20ish) one day record flock. Also saw Kingfisher, Otter, Barn Owl and quite a few Marsh Harriers, a (poor) roost of 1300 Starlings were out done by the sunset.

Also if anyone is interested I have joined twitter: @ben_lewis_uk

I have also joined the patchbirding competition for next year, a map of the patch will feature here soon, I'm looking forward to seeing what the Mid Yare Valley really has to offer!

Dawn at the fen

An early wake up for some reason today, it looked clear although still dark so I knew it would be a nice  morning to have a walk around the fen.
It was fairly quiet and crisp, the highlights are pictured below, also saw 2 Kingfishers, 1 Bittern, 1 Water pipit and the white bellied Marsh harrier (possibly the same bird that I pictured in the north broads in the summer?)