Over the past month or so we'd been treated to occasional glimpses of a water rail scuttling from one side of the brambles to the other just in front of the visitor centre windows. Following several requests to magic this elusive bird up on New Year Day for some of the bird racers, I've been attempting to lure it out with the judicious scattering of mealworms. For a day or so, my water rail appeared to be turning its beak up at my offerings and they were appreciated only by the moorhens, mallards, house sparrows, robins, blackbirds, dunnocks and song thrush. Then this morning, there it was (hooray!) happily picking at the mealworms and showing itself for a full 5 minutes! Am now feeling very pleased with myself.
So even if you're not braving the windy weather and going out on the reserve it is worth spending a little bit of time peering out of our big windows - you never know what you'll spot, and it's not just birds - in the last couple of days I've had great views of a weasel and we've had an albino fallow deer trying to make friends (rather unsuccessfully) with the rest of the herd.
A few intrepid nature watchers have braved the wind and wet over the last few days and there is plenty to see out on the trail; crossbills and firecrests have continued to delight and frustrate in equal measure depending on whether you've been lucky enough to see them or not, the number of black-tailed godwit has reached the 250 mark, several ruff and dunlin seemed to have moved inland to avoid the worst of the weather and there are lapwings, wigeon and teal everywhere!
It was very special to see such good views of the water rail yesterday, many thanks to Anna for encouraging it out to feed.