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Today was an excellent example of the action from the wildlife at Blacktoft Sands during spring. Lets start with the magnificent male marsh harriers. They seemed to be in the mood for a bit of nest building this morning. I watched just one of the male marsh harriers down at townend hide today flying...

Highlights today include those amazing snipe, singing birds, displaying harriers and our water vole. Starting with the snipe . These are showing extremely well on most of the lagoons with marshland hide being the place to get extremely close to this wonderful birds. Here is a photo I managed to get...

Well today was wet until 15:45 and all was calm until then. The marsh harriers were heading into the reeds one by one and two hen harriers were also present. Then it stopped raining. The next half hour brought about a lot of activity. Firstly, the male hen harrier made another appearance, then...

If you look across the reeds at the reserve this moment you can often see the heads of many of the young marsh harriers as the sit on bushes watching and waiting for the arrival of their parents with food. Here is two of the youngsters out the front of first doing just this today. Meanwhile down...

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...

Hi, This week has seen a bit of change in our marsh harrier behaviour. Just a week ago we have been watching one of our male marsh harrier taking pieces of reed into a potential nest site and now today many of our marsh harriers were taking advantage of our first dry day for a while to start building...

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...

This week has seen the return of some of our spectacular smart looking male marsh harriers as they establish their territories about the reserve. They are now present throughout the day - particularly from singleton and first hides. The action will peak over coming weeks as they sort out their boundaries...

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...

Listen out for the magical sound of whistling ducks of teal and the 'pjiew pjiew' of wigeons as you go around the reserve at this time of year. Numbers of ducks have increased quickly since we melted on Tuesday with tufted duck, pochard, gadwall and shelduck present along with the teal and wigeon...

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...

15 marsh harriers came into roost this evening with 7000 golden plover behind them. The hen harrier was once again present at roost time along with a merlin. Also today there were 3 spotted redshank up at Ousefleet, a chiffchaff by the feeders and a cettis warbler around singleton. We have now managed...

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 sight of watching over 21 marsh harriers in the air at once brings to the end of a great day at the sands. They just seemed to keep coming and flying around all together just for fun and offered a great spectacle for our visitors. Actions seemed to peak around 5:30pm with the build up beginning from...

Our fantastic week for seeing waders on the reserve continues today with common sandpiper being added to the list, meaning we have now seen 22 different types of wader this week! Todays highlights include 9 curlew sandpiper , 2 little stint , wood sandpiper and those amazing spotted redshank . ...

A quick update on the action at Blacktoft today (Saturday 16th July). Marsh harriers - those young marsh harriers were fooling around all day down at Singleton. Also first chick spotted in bush at the back of First (hopefully see more of these tomorrow!). Sandpipers - Marsh sandpiper present for...

A wide variation of birds to see at Blacktoft right now. From our spoonbills to some young avocets to those spotted redshanks. Lets start with those spoonbills . They are sleeping a lot this week - often at the back of townend. These two have been here for three weeks now. Today they left their sleeping...

What a wonderful Saturday on the reserve. We arrived to find we now have 3 spoonbills feeding on first. They quickly decided it was time for a rest so off they went to their normal sleeping spot on singleton - by that island! They then slept until around 3pm before having a short flight to townend to...

It all started with a meeting with this monster when we emptied the moth tarp - an eyed hawkmoth. So todays numbers with highlights are as follows: 62 species of bird. Top being 3 little gulls on marshland, the pair of garganey on first (once again appearing in the afternoon), black-tailed godwits...

Well today started with another sighting of our friendly hare running along the path in front of reception. Then down on marshland, we had a spotted redshank (in full summer plumage), those black-tailed godwits , the noisy avocets (and chicks), sedge and reed warblers along those reeds. This afternoon...