December, 2011

Frampton Marsh

Optics Day.

Sunday 18th December

10am – 4pm.

Come and join our optical experts for a day of demonstration.

Great bargains available on Swarovski, Leica, Viking, RSPB and Puffin binoculars and scopes.

What a wild and windy day! I’ve been in the visitor centre this morning and was very impressed with the people who came for a walk and braved the wind. It’s definitely worth it, with thousands of wigeon and hundreds of lapwing and golden plover about.

It’s worth hanging about till around 4 o’clock at the moment. The past couple of weeks we’ve had a ghostly visitor swooping over the reedbed just as the light starts to fade. This barn owl was even joined by another one a couple of days ago. I’ve never had such good views of a barn owl and every day I look forward to going down to the reserve to shut up the centre and have a look through the telescopes.

At the end of November, a snow bunting landed on the visitor centre roof! I’m desperate to see one and look really hard at all little birds that fly past, but no luck yet. Snow buntings are beautiful little birds that travel all the way from the arctic and arrive in Eastern England around November time. The males return to their Arctic breeding grounds in early April, a few weeks before the females, to set up territories. So I’ve got 4 months to spot one!

Hanging out in the visitor centre today was great because we had several curlews and black-tailed godwits feeding on the island just in front of the front windows. With so many birds easily viewable from the warmth of the visitor centre it’s worth coming down just for a cup of tea!

Hi,

It has been very cold on the reserve today. The temperature has struggled to get above 5C, which felt much colder thanks to the biting south westerly wind.

The cold has not put off our visitors or our birds.

Today's highlights have included-

White-fronted goose 23

Brent goose 1000

Wigeon 1000

Golden plover 1000

Lapwing 800

Water rail 1

Hen harrier 2

Marsh harrier 1

Peregrine 2

Merlin 1

Short-eared owl 1

Barn owl 1

Weather for the weekend-

Saturday will be bright and sunny, with highs of 9C. The wind will come from the west at approx 17mph.

Sunday will be less sunny, with some patches of cloud. The wind will be a south westerly at a speed of 16mph.

This week's tides-

Thanks for reading,

Simon.