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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...

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...

Had a fantastic visit to Blacktoft today with outstanding views of two snipe! (amongst a myriad of other birds)

27 November 2011: Singleton Hide, Blacktoft Sands. No, there's no radioactivity at Singleton lagoon! Bit of a laugh, really! I was trying to get a decent image out of a mediocre shot of a Common Snipe in low light level conditions. It was impossible. So I played around with the level controls...

2 September 2011: Marshlands lagoon, Blacktoft Sands This Snipe was one of the many waders feeding close to the new Marshlands hide

17 June 2011: Blacktoft Sands, Marshlands Lagoon This single Snipe at Marshlands made a brief appearance before disappearing from view.

It has certainly felt like spring these last few days on the reserve but there were also a few reminders of winter. For winter, we still have a variety of ducks scattered throughout the lagoons from wigeon to that female goldeneye and on Monday a hen harrier was spotted. For spring, avocets are...

It felt very much like spring today at Blacktoft. Many of our birds were singing, the first avocets landed on marshland, great crested grebes and little grebes were displaying and also some of our marsh harriers . Our stars - the long-eared owls were back at their normal spots today offering great...

Even though we still have waders (spotted redshank, black-tailed godwits and some ruff), the main time for waders at Blacktoft Sands has now come to an end. So how was 2010 for waders at Blacktoft? The big one this year was semipalmated sandpiper. A total of 27 species of wader visited the reserve...

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...

40 snipe are now using marshland for a lot of sitting around. These amazingly marked birds peak during October at Blacktoft Sands and sit in full view of visitors to our hides. The challenge is to try and count them - at least 40 were on marshland this morning but how many more are there throughout the...

During this next month we see the end of summer and the start of a new season, autumn. What does this mean for us at Blacktoft? Over the next few weeks, waders will give way to wildfowl. Of the waders still around we have 2 curlew sandpipers , lots of spotted redshank , ruff and some black-tailed...

Early afternoon on the Singleton lagoon on 11th August 2010: most of the many waders appeared to be roosting. Then, suddenly, as if someone gave a signal, they nearly all woke up and started feeding. Here are two each of the many Snipe and Redshank enjoying the food-rich mud!

It was almost "standing room only" for waders on Singleton lagoon on 11th August 2010. Here's one of the 14 Little Egrets present that day, along with: * Ruff * Greenshank * Common Redshank * Snipe * Black-tailed Godwit Outside this photo, but close by, were Spotted Redshank, Green...

Snipe were actively feeding out in the open on Singleton lagoon on 11th August 2010. Here are three Snipe along with three Ruff (aduly males), giving a good size comparison.

Snipe were actively feeding out in the open on Singleton lagoon on 11th August 2010. Here are three Snipe along with three Ruff (aduly males), giving a good size comparison.

Taken 29th July 2010