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With the wonderful weather we've had over the past few days, things have been busy down here at the reserve. Although the weather may have cooled down the bird action certainly hasn't with this morning bringing with it some brilliant views of a female marsh harrier and a male hen harrier , both...

A long-staying pectoral sandpiper has been showing rather nicely on the main scrape out in front of the reception building for the best part of three weeks now. And is present at almost exactly the same time as last year ... it would be a nice birthday present if it remained until the 22/23 September...

Photo of juvenile marsh harrier by Matt Thomas ( http://www.deebirder.blogspot.co.uk/ ) Sightings of marsh harriers have been better than ever before here on the Dee Estuary with probably eight different individuals being seen in the last month. And just to make things more interesting a couple...

Its not only Team GB that have enjoyed a record haul of gold this past few weeks. Team Dee Estuary have four golds at the moment in the form of golden headed marsh harriers, not something I have experienced before here. As this excellent picture from Andy Davis shows they can easily be seen from...

Perhaps not the exact origin of the saying but coot chicks are very bald indeed! This is one of five on the pool just outside the reception building at Burton Mere Wetlands. We also have a newly hatched brood of greylag geese and five different broods of avocets, so babies are the feature of the...

A few not-so-subtle changes have occured in the past week or two as the first summer visitors have arrived whilst most of the winter stayers have left. Several unmistakable sounds were noticed as I opened up the reserve this morning, firstly at least 3 chiffchaffs were singing - and yes that distinctive...

Pectoral Sandpiper with Lapwing by by K. Scovell In the words of one visitor "Inner Marsh Farm has delivered again" as a quiet Sunday afternoon was rudely disturbed by this small wader feeding amongst the gathered lapwings. It was quickly identified as a pectoral sandpiper ( Calidris...

With the weather taking a turn for the worse birding has become slightly moe difficult as birds take refuge (getting decent pictures has been even tougher!). So as soon as the clouds broke I popped down to the hide where this stunning looking male ruff was waiting to have its picture taken. This...

Hello This time of year is very busy as early morning breediig bird surveys begin as early as 7am! Redshank surveys have started out on the marsh with skylarks, reed bunting, oystercatcher and meadow pipits all recorded displaying over our plots. A volunteer and I had amazing views...

Those that joined us on Sunday's Raptor Watch at Parkgate were treated to a special treat as the wintering birds of prey showed off like never before. Immediately upon arrival a juvenile peregrine was perched upon a piece of driftwood no more than 500m away and there it did stay until sunset....

The Environment Agency have re-commenced work on the embankment footpath leading to the viewpoint (site of former hide) at RSPB Point of Ayr for strengthening and heightening of the embankment. It is estimated that this work will take up to 5 weeks. There is access from BHP Billiton car park. Recent...

The hard work is continuing down at "Inner Marsh Farm 2" with one big job complete and another big job on going the landscape is changing quickly. Several sluices have been installed which will allow us to effectively control water levels on our new shallow pools. Meanwhile a 2.5Km predator...

"Wow" is a word often overused but in this case I feel that it is justified as IMF continues its hot-streak of rare birds. A marsh tern provided some brief views and blurry photos but after careful deliberation on Thursday evening it eventually became apparant that we were dealing with a...

Today I was reminded of why I enjoy my job! I got to count birds all day all across the whole reserve in the sun :-) We had a couple of Garganey and a wigeon on the far pool along with shoveller and pintail and 1500 teal (2500 were counted last week with 2620 equalling 1% of the UK population!). On our...

After 4 weeks of hard graft a new wetland haven has been created down at IMF. On land adjacent to Burton Mere Fisheries over 5 hectares of abandoned arable land has been transformed into a network of pools, islands, spits and bays perfect for waders and wildfowl such as lapwing, snipe, teal and pintail...

Warblers! The past few weeks have seen dramatic visual changes at IMF as the warm weather (and the odd bout of rain) has transformed the recently dormant vegetation into a vast sea of green. Wading birds slowly acquire their breeding plumage as black-tailed godwit's heads, necks and breast...

Sometimes I have to pinch myself and realise that the Dee estuary lies on the border of North-West England and North Wales and not in the Mediterranean - we are actually closer to Iceland than we are to many of our summer holiday destinations! Despite this fact the birds here don't seem to mind,...