Frampton Marsh

Please sir, can I have some more?.....

Charlotte Jones — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:27:18 GMT

The bird feeders are proving very popular at the moment both with the birds and visitors. We've had a good variety of species and regularly get chaffinch, greenfinch, yellowhammer, tree sparrow and goldfinch, sometimes all at the same time! I was in the visitor centre yesterday enjoying watching the little birds along with some visitors who sat there for over 30 minutes. They're certainly getting through the seed quickly, I only filled up the large bird feeder on Tuesday and by closing up time yesterday all the seed had gone. It really is great how you can view the birds so close, come along and have a look for yourself!

Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)

That Was The Weekend That Was

Chris Andrews — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:46:41 GMT

You know, I really shouldn't know some of these cultural references. I'm much younger than that!

But what a stonking weekend. OK, Saturday was a bit grey and cloudy. But wasn't Sunday a lovely day? Great to see so many people out on the reserve enjoying it.

The birds did their part too, with some exciting sightings. And yes, the Temminck's stint was amongst them. Plus five of its mates. We had six stints, all feeding away in the pools on the wet grassland behind the east hide. Not quite beating last year's record of seven. But who knows what the week ahead will bring.

Also weighing in, on Sunday there was a Montagu's harrier spotted over the saltmarsh. The reservoir on the wet grasslands had wood sandpiper, common sandpiper and whinchat all hanging around it. The turtle doves in the hedgerow were being vocal and a spoonbill spent a lot of Saturday wading around the freshwater scrapes. The scrapes were also playing host to two little gulls (still being pestered by the black-headed gulls).

In other exciting news, we are now the proud landlords of some very cute chicks. Both avocets and lapwings hatched out at the weekend. You are most likely to see the little balls of fluff from the east hide, as they look for food shepherded around by proud (if anxious ) parents. The avocets particularly tend to be very protective, trying to drive away anything that comes close to their little darlings.

Photo by Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)

Something for the weekend, Sir?

Chris Andrews — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:03:00 GMT

Or Madam, we aren't sexist here at Framton Marsh.

So, what is about that you might like to see this weekend?

Well, top of the list would be the two Temminck's stints that have been out on the reserve for a day or two. not always the easiest birds to see. Your best bet is probably to be in the East Hide, often looking out over the wet grassland towards the seabank. Check the edges of the pools and channels there. or get up on the seabank itself and look down over the same area.

A spoonbill has dropped in to pay us a visit, spending some of the time on the freshwater scrapes at Frampton, some on the wet grassland of Freiston. Also at Freiston there was a garganey yesterday, hiding away in the channels in the wet grassland at the south end of the reserve. Back at Frampton, a wood sandpiper and a greenshank have both been at the 'reservoir', the large pool of water on the grassland (check the map and you'll see where I mean). Close by there, in the hedgerow, a turtle dove pair have been literally billing and cooing.

Back onto the wetter areas, and the freshwater scrapes have been home to quite a few common terns recently. also with a tern-like flight, a little gull has been hanging around too. On the wader front, turnstones and ruff have been putting on their lovely summer plummage, as have black-tailed godwit. Plus, we hear our first avocet chicks have hatched. Aww, fluffies!

Amongst other birds about, wheatear have been seen out on the salt marsh, corn buntings are singing from the small stunty trees at the back of the reedbed, swifts and swallows seem to be everywhere and the local marsh harriers have been giving some great views. All in all, well worth a visit!

Cache me if you can!

Chris Andrews — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:23:00 GMT

One of the two geocaching trails around the reserve required some work on it. So I have been busy doing that all morning

So, what is geocaching? Well, simply put, it is a treasure hunt. Various items are hidden, and then their GPS coordinates are posted on a website www.geocaching.com and the idea is for other people to try to find them. When they do, they leave their name on a piece of paper that is inside the hidden object and often make a comment on the website. Rather like a high-tech version of 'hunt the thimble'.

We have two such trails around the reserve. One is a traditional trail called 'Wildlife of Frampton' where each object hidden has some connection to our wildlife. The other is a 'multi-cache' trail. Rather than finding many different objects, instead you need to find signs and glean information from them (eg years, names of people and so on). Once you have done that, using a code you can transform this into the co-ordinates of the final cache, which is an object.

Today I needed to replace one cache which had gone missing (people do unfortunately sometimes walk off with them. Or even bring them in as lost property) and re-site another which had become inaccessible.

Does all this sound like fun? Then do come along and have a go! Dedicated GPS units can be bought from most outdoor stores or online for under £100. Or else you can download an app for your mobile phone. Eventually I do hope to have a GPS unit available to hire in the visitor centre too, but this is in the future.

Lets focus on...... Lapwings

Chris Andrews — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:28:00 GMT

It is time to introduce a new feature to the blog. Over the coming year we will give a little bit of extra info about some of the wonderful wildlife that makes Frampton Marsh its home. To start with, let's look at one of our most familiar (and yet maybe underrated) birds, the lapwing.

Lapwings are a wading birds, just over medium size, with rounded black and white wings. When they are on the gorund you can see the dark, bottle green back, white belly, black chest and an orangey patch under the tail. The face is black and white, and surmounted by a long black crest. Really quite striking to look at. I remember taking an American lady around to see British birds, and it was lapwings that thrilled her the most.

Not just nice to look act, they can act in spectacular ways too. In the breeding season (ie now) they have a marvellous display flight. Birds soar and plummet in a roller-coaster of romance, all the while giving voice to wild cries of "Pee-wit". Just to add extra impact, their feathers hum as the air rushes over them.

The 'peewit' noise is also used for birds calling to each other, especially in flight. This was therefore taken as an old country name for them. Another name was the green plover. They do belong in the plover family of birds, and their metallic bottle-green backs gave them this name.

Lapwings are often birds of farmland, making their nests in fields where crops are cultivated in the spring. They also like meadows, wet grassland, fens, bogs and marshes. The nest itself is just a shallow scrape in the ground, lined with a few leaves. They like to nest in areas where there is bare soil and only short plants, the better to see danger approaching. The female lays 3-4 eggs, which hatch after four weeks. The chicks are able to walk and feed almost immediately, and scatter from the nest. They reply on camouflaged down to keep them safe from predators such as gulls, herons and foxes. Both parents help raise them, until they are able to fly.

Unfortunately modern farming practices have not been great for lapwings. Crops are now often sown in autumn rather than spring, meaning the plants are too tall for the lapwings to nest amongst. The decline of mixed farms in favour of monoculture has further put pressure on this bird, with numbers cropping by half in 10 years. British lapwings themselves are actually rather unusual, across most of the range they are migratory, making long journeys between summer and winter grounds. But in the UK they tend to stay put, though we do get a big influx every winter from the Continent.

So that is the lapwing. A lovely bird, but one that is currently hard pressed. They are most often seen at Frampton making display flights over the grassland, or feeding on the scrapes or islands in the reedbed. Come and see if you can spot one today!

Photo by Neil Smith

After work birding

Chris Andrews — Sat, 11 May 2013 08:54:34 GMT

One of the advantages of actually working on a reserve like Frampton is that you can often do a bit of birding on a whim. So, at 5:30 yesterday having finished work, I decided to pop down to the reserve to see what was about.

To start with, it really wasn't that promising. Dark clouds were looming and the wind was gusting along. So rather than go right out to the East hide, I figured a trip to the 360 hide was in order instead. Having got there, I started to scan through the various birds on offer. Amongst my first thoughts were that there were a fair number of common terns about. including a pair that seemed to be trying to make a nest on one of the islands. Though as it was shared with a bunch of gulls, that might have been optimistic on both our parts! A few small waders were dotted about. Ruff, dunlin, redshanks, ringed and little ringed plovers. A sandpiper picking its way along the back of the freshwater scrapes gave me pause for thought, before deciding it was probably a green sandpiper.

As I was doing this, a small wader popped into view. And yes, it was small. A passing ringed plover dwarfed it. It seemed to be having real trouble keeping its footing in the strong winds, almost being blown sideways. It avoided the company of the other waders, preferring to poke about in sparsely vegetated areas. Pale legs, white belly, straight dark bill, brownish upperparts. Could it be...? Yes it was. The temminck's sting which had been reported to the pagers on Thursday (but not to us, grrrrr) was still about. There was a worry that it might be a little stint, but they have dark legs and pale lines on the back, which this didn't have. Temmincks are rather more unusual, but do turn up during spring and autumn migrations.

Now, whilst I was watching this, something kept flitting in and out of my view. Refocussing my attention, it turned out to be a young little gull. Vastly smaller than the usual black headed gulls, and with an obvious black W mark over its back. One of the local black headed gulls had evidently taken a dislike to it and was chasing it all over the place. The big bully! The little gull was twisting away from the attacks with ease though, rather more agile and indeed tern-like in its flight.

All in all, a pretty good haul. I'm glad I didn't go straight home!

An escapee!!

Charlotte Jones — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:22:35 GMT

The wind has calmed down a bit here at the reserve but we've still had some antics today! If you've been down to the reserve recently you may have noticed we have some sheep grazing near the visitor centre and around the reedbed. Well this morning one of them decided 'the grass was greener on the other side', (of the fence that is!) and made a run for it. Back-up had to be called and there were about 5 RSPB staff on hand to encourage the sheep back though the fence. It was a successful plan and she went back through although we've just found out she's done it again! Maybe we should nickname her 'Houdina'!

A herd of RSPB staff!

Charlotte Jones — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:55:00 GMT

Well the cow GPS collars turned up today and we thought it would be fun to test them out on some of the staff. Here we are vaguely pretending to be grazing cows!

These collars do have a more serious purpose however! They will be strapped around the necks of cows and used to track where the cattle go on the saltmarsh. This is to see if cows are affecting redshanks by trampling on their nests and so is quite an important bit of fieldwork. The collars will be going on the cows within the next week.

Black-winged Stilt

John Badley — Tue, 07 May 2013 21:25:00 GMT

The conversation went something like this.....

Me (speaking from Frampton office): "Hi Graham, how are you?"

Graham (RSPB Reserve Ecologist based in Bedfordshire): "Oh so you've phoned up to gloat then have you?"

Me: "No.....er....what about?"

Graham: "Being the first RSPB reserve to have a stilt this year?"

Me: "What!....where?"

Graham: "It's been on all the pagers for the past couple of hours"

Me: "Really?....You're kidding, no-one has mentioned anything..."

Sure enough there was a black-winged stilt on the reserve. They really are superb looking birds, with such incredibly long pink legs they almost look 'made up'. Hopefully it will hang around for a while for visitors to enjoy......do pop into the visitors centre to ask for the latest news.....

John (always last to know) Site Manager

Wood you believe it?

Chris Andrews — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:26:13 GMT

What a lovely bank holiday Monday it was! The sun was out, temperatures were up and we had a lot of happy visitors wandering around the reserve. So nice to meet everyone and to hear the very positive comments about the site.

In terms of birdlife, highlight of Monday is probably the very showy wood sandpiper. This will be on its way back to its breeding ground in northern Scotland, after spending the winter down in Africa. It spent most of Monday poking around the shoreline of the freshwater sacrapes, by the path leading to the East hide. It will have been picking up flies and other insects, to give it a boost of energy ready for the final push northwards. At times it really was rather close. No need for a scope, binoculars or even just looking gave a really rather good view.

Elsewhere, there was a party of 20 whimbrel on the wet grasslands. Two turtle doves were seen on-and-off during the day in the hedgerow around the back of the grassland. A male ruff was spotted trying to court the ladies, maybe a bit ambitious since he hadn't fully developed his feather plumes.

There are still quite a few brent geese about. Maybe 500 or so. They won't be with us for too much longer, soon they will head off to the Artic to breed. Still a bit nippy up there though, so for the moment they are enjoying the spring sunshine down here. In amongst them is a 'black brant', the darker North American version.

One good tern deserves another

Chris Andrews — Sun, 05 May 2013 17:02:54 GMT

Well, a nice sunny day here at lovely Frampton Marsh. And some interesting sightings to be had too.

To start with (and the excuse for one of my favourite puns), we've had a few terns through. Most have been common terns, on their way back to breeding grounds after wintering in Africa. But we have had a couple of more unusual ones. Top of which would be the roseate tern. One of our rarest breeding birds, with just a couple of breeding sites left. Similar in size to the common tern, they have a pinkish flush to the breast and much longer tail streamers. The other tern was a little tern. About a third smaller than a common tern, and it looks noticeably larger in the head. Both these birds were seen coming up off the river and saltmarsh, over the scrapes and above the reedbed.

Roseate tern by Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com)

Sticking with smaller versions of things, in amongst the black-headed gulls today was a little gull. This is quite noticeably smaller than the black-headed gulls, with a tern-like flight. Bouyant, zig-zagging and then dipping down to pluck insects from the surface of the water.

Little gull by Neil Smith

Finally, it was warm enough to have the windows open in the visitor centre, meaning some insects came inside and got trapped. Amongst them was a particular wasp. Rather than being the familiar black and yellow scourge of picnics, this had quite a different shape and a red tail. It turns out to be a sand wasp, which digs burrows into sandy banks to house its larvae, before catching caterpillars to feed them.

Sand wasp by 'Chiswick Chap' via Wikimedia Commons

Studying in sunny Snowdonia!

Charlotte Jones — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:56:30 GMT

Well what a week I've had! I've been in Snowdonia National Park in North Wales all week on a training course at the most amazing study centre. I travelled there on monday picking up Sophie and Phil (the other visitor service trainees) on the way and although the 5 hour drive was pretty tiring it was worth it. The weather was great and we got a chance to be out and about enjoying the beautiful Welsh landscape as well as learning about visitor interpretation. I certainly feel like I've learnt a lot and I will never look at an information panel in the same way again! I was even dreaming about information panels by the end, slightly worrying I would say.

Below are a couple of photos I took of the view and the study centre we stayed in!

Anyway I'm now back in Boston and looking forward to being back on the reserve on Monday. Apparently it's going to be really warm on the bank holiday, might even get up to 20 degrees so hope to see lots of you there! Cheers!

A mysterious character

Chris Andrews — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:59:00 GMT

Ed (the conservation intern) and I have been moth trapping again. Really is a bit like christmas. You got to bed not knowing what you'll get. Will it be the moth equivalent of a shiny new bike? Or just a satsuma and a pair of socks?

To be honest, the quantity of the catch hasn't been huge. But what we have had has been interesting.

This one is a hebrew character. But one that gave us a few issues.

Normally with hebrew characters there is a black 'saddle' shaped mark on the wing. This has a passing resemblance to a letter in the hebrew alphabet, hence the name. But on this one that marking merged into an unusual darker mark above it, giving it a rather different appearance. But a scan through the books revealled all. It is quite a common moth, appreaing right across the country.

Another moth that came to visit was this one

This is the brindled flat-body, so called because it is (oddly enough) very flat. They hatch in the autumn and spend the winter buried away, hibernating. As a result they are one of the early moths of spring. Their caterpillars eat thistles and knapweed.

As the nights get warmer, hopefully we'll have more moths to show you. watch this space!

Easy come, easy go

Chris Andrews — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:01:00 GMT

Quite a good weekend for rarer birds. Though they didn't behave quite as well as we'd have liked.

The excitment on Saturday was a black-necked grebe. In nicer summer breeding plummage too. A smart little bird, it did behave well, staying close to the path that runs around the reedbed, and allowing some very nice views.

Of course, we released the news on the birdwatchers news services. So typically, on Sunday it had disappeared. Instead we had three garganey. These are the one duck that is also a summer migrant. Most migratory ducks come to us in winter, escaping harsher conditions further north. but garganey visit us to breed. We had two smart males and a female. It looked like a pair and a spare male, playing gooseberry. Indeed, it was the female that sometimes chased away the extra male. The new wife getting rid of her husband's batchelor mate? :)

Also on Sunday, an early morning walk showed a short-eared owl. And a curlew sandpiper was feeding on the freshwater scrapes.

Swans are settling

Charlotte Jones — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:17:00 GMT

We have a pair of Mute swans who have decided to set up their nest right next to the footpath near the 360 hide. It's tucked nicely into the corner and they seem to be very happy there. I walked past the nest today and the female was sitting keeping her eggs nice and warm, she seemed very cosy!

Some interesting facts on Mute swans for you.....

Male swans are called cobs and females are called pens
Their wingspan can be up to 2.5m wide and they are Britains largest bird