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On Monday we had an extremely close view as a bittern flew past reception just 10 metres in front of us and ended up going into the edge of the reeds on the right hand side of first. This offered us excellent views of the wonderful marked pulmage on this rare bird. This last few weeks has seen a increase...

A little update this evening of some of the action about Blacktoft Sands today - starting with hen harriers and finishing with barn owls. OK - The hen harriers have been showing off and on throughout much of the day down at singleton - with both the male and a ring-tail making an appearance. The...

After much of this week being stuck in the office due to the weather, I went down this afternoon for a look at the reserve. Apart from being completely covered in snow including the car park - there was lots of action from some of our wildlife. Here are some of the highlights: Roe Deer - seen all...

The spectacular harrier roost continues into 2012 with the male hen harrier joining the two ring-tail hen harriers (pictured above) at roost time between 2:30pm and 4:15pm. These three hen harriers have been flying around with up to 24 marsh harriers these first few days of 2012. Other highlights...

This evening roost started with them coming in ones and twos then finished with 38 MARSH HARRIERS in the air at once around 4pm. 2 RING-TAIL HEN HARRIERS were also flying around at that time. Added to that white-fronted geese flying around, thousands of golden plover, a merlin and a barn owl. Here...

Strangely at the moment there are'nt many ducks on site but given a bit of patience and good timing there is an amazing range of quality birds to be seen instead. In regards to the ducks it seems that the major tidal flooding of last month has produced excellent feeding conditions elsewhere on the...

Today saw the first of our two festive roost events - so this is what happened. A minimum of 14 marsh harriers into roost - these were still flying around at end of event (4pm) so number may be more. Two ring-tail hen harriers joining the fly around with the marsh harriers. Thousands and...

A very calm sunny day at the sands ended with great excitment as peregrine chases thousands of golden plover during arrival of marsh harriers to roost. The rest of the day had a very calm atmosphere The shelducks were swimming on marshland. Our four konik ponies were calmly eating the grass...

Well, our harriers seemed to be having a lot of fun down at singleton this evening. Just after 4pm, I managed to count 16 marsh harriers and 1 ring-tail hen harrier in just one view in my binoculars! - what a sight! They were in the mood to have a right good fly around before settling in for a night...

The long-eared owls that we found on Sunday are still here and offering excellent views for our many visitors this week. This week has also seen a little bit of change with many birds returning to Blacktoft. Most noticeable is the black-headed gulls . Also skylarks have been singing up at Ousefleet...

Our bird of prey roost has been entertaining us since September when the roost was at 21 birds, 15 remained through November, around 10 in January and now numbers are climbing again with around 15 marsh harriers coming to roost at Blacktoft around 5pm each day. During this time the merlins have been...

The following is a report of the last three hours of the day and all seen from singleton hide on Sunday 13th February during our bird of prey event. Starting with birds of prey. Another red kite sighting this week - this one flew in along the back of lagoons heading towards the trent. Around 7 marsh...

An excellent week for birds of prey with our young hen harrier joining the marsh harriers at roost time and spending a lot of time flying around together - must think its a marsh harrier! I also was watching a spectacular male hen harrier hunting around the reserve today - at one point directly in front...

Enjoying this bit of fresh air today has been the marsh harriers - the have simply been amazing! They have been flying around all over the place all day long. Towards dusk today there were at least six marsh harriers going into roost (well six in the air at once) and they even invited a couple of...

A welcome sight this morning was the sight of two ringtail hen harrier chasing each other around the reserve. It was interesting to see that one of the birds was almost certainly the one with abraded primaries that was seen at Reads Island over the weekend. So its looking good for birds of prey at the...

Today towards dusk we had: 6 marsh harriers going into roost in the reeds for the night. A merlin was spotted around singleton lagoon. Hen harriers - a male and a ring-tail were hunting the reserve around 4pm Please note that this Friday and Saturday we are running special birds of...

In recent weeks we have been seeing up to three different hen harriers joining our regular birds of prey on the reserve. At least two of these, a male and a ring-tail were seen coming into roost towards dusk in the last few days so why not join us this weekend and you may be able to compare a male hen...

Well what a day for birds of prey at Blacktoft Sands with 2 Hen Harrier, 4 Marsh harrier, 2 merlin, sparrowhawk and kestrel. Lets start with the hen harriers - around 14:30 our smart male that has been around for at least the last ten days turned up at Ousefleet and did a complete circuit ending up...

As you were expecting here is Friday evenings update. Top of the sightings list for the past week has been a male hen harrier . This smart looking bird seems to like it as was around last weekend and was last seen at 3pm today down at singleton lagoon. The ice / water situation: At Ousefleet hide...

During recent days we have been seeing signs of both marsh harrier and hen harrier using the reserve. We have spotted two different male hen harriers hunting over the reserve on a regularly basis. Marsh harriers have also started using the reserve as a place to roost again as the water begins to free...

Todays roost had well over 10 marsh harriers coming in - these 10 were counted from reception at 3:15pm and were all in the air at once! A ring-tail hen harrier also made an appearance around that time. For the roost best to be in postion by 2:30pm at the latest. We also had a male hen harrier seen on...

We have been playing a game of spot that hen harrier. After last sundays excitment of the rough-legged buzzard (pictures on gallery), we picked up a male hen harrier and we have been spotting a hen harrier every day since. The only change was it was a male up until Tuesday and then a ring-tail since...

This afternoon we watched for 45 minutes as a rough-legged buzzard decided to have a fly through Blacktoft Sands. It might of thought this would not be a problem but it quickly picked up a few marsh harriers. These decided that they didn't like this intruder and started mobbing it as it flew into...

Just to bring you up to date on what has been happening on the reserve this week. The signs of summer (and they are winning) are the sedge warblers singing in the reeds and the willow warblers in the willows. Also on the summer front are yellow wagtails up at Ousefleet, swallows, sand martins, avocets...