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It was another sunny winters day down at the sands and both marsh and hen harriers seem to be having fun flying around. Once I defrosted the reception, I got my first glimpse of a marsh harrier floating past reception and then looking towards singleton there was a ring-tail hen harrier hunting around...

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...

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...

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...

Well what a nice day to visit the reserve at Blacktoft - the sun on the reeds, some nice birds and a place to escape to in the winter! I only spent the last few hours on the reserve today but I had a barn owl - this time at the marshland box. This along with recent sightings of two down at singleton...

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...

Pause around the feeding station on approach to reception and start your behaviour spotting. Listen out for the chatty sound of our tree sparrows which are often found in large numbers around our feeding station, that is until the starling sized bird with it undulating flight lands on the nuts. For a...

Approaching 4pm up to 12 marsh harriers start appearing from all different directions. Depending what they feel like they may flap around for a while sometimes with 6 to 9 marsh harriers in the air at once before they decide it is time to get settled for the night in the reeds or they may just drop in...

Ten years ago there was a great starling roost at Blacktoft Sands but for some reason this no longer happens. Sometimes starlings change roost sites - this might be what happened to us. Last year for one night only, 100 starlings decided to roost in the reeds at the reserve - why one night? I cannot...

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...

After deciding to get up after a night in the reeds of blacktoft, a few of this years young marsh harriers have taken to a bit of chasing of teal around xerox. This game went on for much of yesterday morning. When the light starts to go between 4pm and 6pm around 10 marsh harriers have been seen recently...

There are now over 100 snipe on the reserve at the moment - favouring marshland / xerox. High tide this weekend has brought a lot of water onto the reserve so many of the waders have moved up to ousefleet to make use of the new shallow wet edges. This morning there were lots of lapwing, black-tailed...