Belated Happy New Year to you all!! I hope you had a great break over the festive season. Just a quick update from Mersehead to let you know some of the fantastic wildlife that has been spotted over the last few days. The star of the show has most definitely been the female Hen Harrier who has been seen every day for the last few weeks, even being very obliging a couple of days ago by flying right past the car park! The male has also been seen over the last couple of days but is tending to stay at the back of the reserve. We are starting to see an increase in Barnacle Goose numbers again, with a recent count of 4,900 on the reserve. Sadly our wetland areas are still pretty iced over so this is effecting the number of wildfowl that we are seeing on the reserve. The finches and buntings continue to feed on the wild bird cover and we have had quite large flocks of Linnet and Skylarks as well. The feeding station behind the Visitor Centre continues to attract a lot of attention from the smaller birds, including Tree Sparrows and the occasional Brambling!
We also have an exciting programme of events this year. Coming up this month we have “Get Set for the Big Garden Birdwatch” on Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd January. 11am – 3pm. We’ll be offering people the opportunity to come and see what birds are on our feeders, and also we’ll be offering advice on the best food to use to attract birds into gardens and also encouraging people to take part in the survey at home. As well as this we will have some fun art activities for children too!! Then of course the following weekend sees our annual Big Garden Birdwatch. Again we will be offering advice on feeding garden birds and also children’s art activities!
So as you see it’s all go at Mersehead, we hope to see you all at some point in the New Year. Pop in for a Fairtrade cuppa and snack and a chat! We’ll look forward to seeing you!