What a great week it has been for birds and wildlife on the reserve, with otters, hen harriers, ducks, geese and swans around to delight us and that's not including all of our feeding station birds, including daily great spotted woodpeckers, lots of chaffinches and goldfinches and plenty of house sparrows.
There has been an otter seen feeding outside the Aird Meadow hide at least once a day this week, and on the Barr Loch several times as well. We have been very lucky with the quatity and quality of sightings that we have been having, some visitors have been reporting that they are getting very good photos as well. I have not yet seen it myself, too much time on the computer and not much time for otter spotting, but if I manage to get any good photos, I will put them on the Lochwinnoch Facebook page...please feel free to add your own as well!
Wednesday saw the first hen harrier for the winter as a male bird swept across the Aird Meadow, attempted to hunt and then was promptly mobbed by three crows, who chased him away. Great views though as the crows forced the harrier to come very close to the building, providing us and all of our visitors which a superb swooping display.
There have been very good counts of duck, geese and swans on the Aird Meadow, towards the beginning of the week (8th - 10th) including a ring necked duck, lots of gadwall (our second highest count, ever!), great crested grebes, canada geese, wigeon, teal, goldeneye and over 30 swans. There have also been more sightings of whooper swans on the Aird Meadow, moving over to the Barr Loch, but not yet settling as they will do later in the month.