This title just sums up Blacktoft at the moment. One half of the reserve is where you see the marsh harriers and the other half you get the waders.
Starting back to front with the marsh harriers. Our 14 young marsh harriers are getting more confident by the day with much flapping around in the wind as they get used to that feeling of flight. Some are getting quite good at flying and seem to have quiet sharp eyes as I watched one of the young from the back of townend / first fly all the way to the back of xerox lagoon to intercept the returning male with that prey item. It then struggled to carry the prey item back to where it started - certainly good practice. The best place for harrier action is down at singleton lagoon. Attached below is a photo taken by one of our volunteers showing a young marsh harrier very nicely with that orange / yellow head. For other excellent photos have a look at our gallery.
Now to the waders - these are to be found on xerox, marshland and ousefleet lagoons. Today there were 11 species of waders present on the reserve with 8 spotted redshank, redshank, ruff, green sandpiper, common sandpiper, snipe, greenshank, golden plover, lapwing, avocet and dunlin present. Each day brings a different mix. Our first wader event starts this Wednesday 25th at 10am. There are still places left so if you want to join a two hour session learning about waders then email us at blacktoft.sands@rspb.org.uk For full details of our events click here.
Other highlights include sightings of bittern, bearded tit, water rail (and young), those warblers, lots of tree sparrows, occasional yellow wagtail and peregrine. It is also great to see dragonflies coming out this weekend.