Afternoon everyone!
How are you?
Have you recovered from the too much food, too much drink, too much telly, too much chocolate (and all the other too much's...)?
The reserve is open as usual 10 am-5pm (or dusk if earlier, which is about 4pm at the moment) so you can get out and about and enjoy a nice stoll!
Have you had yoru fill of chocolate yet?Well, you’ve probably had your fill of chocolate over the last couple of weeks, but once your sweet tooth recovers from the overdose, we’ve got a way you can enjoy a nice bit of choccie guilt free... Ok so not entirely guilt free – it’ll still contain the same old calories, but what it doesn’t contain is palm oil.
Clearing forests to grow oil palm is one of the key drivers of deforestation. Palm oil is found in a whole host of products that we use every day, from cosmetics to biscuits. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to spot when a product contains palm oil because companies don’t have to list it as an ingredient – instead they can simply call it vegetable oil.
One product you can be sure doesn’t contain palm oil though is our Love Nature chocolate (or biscuits, or even fudge!). There’s three delicious varieties to choose from so go on, treat yourself! Nom!
It's been a little bit grey today, although the sun has been trying to shine, and has been shining quite well for the last hour or so.This morning the reserve looked lovely - I went for a quick squiz round earlier with Keith. In one direction the sky was grey and in the other the sun was shining! I tried to take a picture as it did look lovely - the blue grey sky with the sun lighting up the trees a lovely orange...I don't think the picture does it justice (it just looks grey to me) so you'll have to take my word for it!
There are loads of teal about today (as well as the other usual duck suspects), lovely views of grey wagtails from the Tern Hide, snipe, fieldfare, loads of blackbirds (I know blackbirds are quite common but there were loads today!), a buzzard flying over the meadow and even a sparrowhawk pestering the lapwing!
Do keep an eye to the skys - you might see somehing like this picture of the lapwing flying - I do love to see a flock of lapwing flying. They look great, they almost twinkle - with the black and white wing.... do you knwo what I mean? Anyhoo, if the birds are up (inlcuding the lapwing and the gulls) something might have spooked them, there might be a bird of prey about!
See you soon,Lou
I am delighted to announce the re-launch of the newsletter for you, the Eye On Rye.
Peter Warne is the new editor/ author so a HUGE thank you to you Peter!
Hard copies will be available from the reserve in the new year, but you - my lovely bloggerers - get to see it first!
So here we go...Download it now! If you click on the blue headline of this blog (so you're opening the blog post - it will be just this that you are reading now, again, but there will be the download link that you click on as well) there will be a download link at the bottom of the page. Have a look by the 'tags' and you should see a blue highlighted words saying "Eye on Rye autumn winter 2011" with a pdf logo, click on it and it will open!
Do you spend the next week eating the left over food from Christmas?
Why not give your garden friends some dinner too (a great way to step up and help nature)! But be careful - not everything is suitable for the birds!
Ray Kennedy (rspb-images.com)
Try Christmas scraps like Christmas cake crumbs, mince pie pastry crumbs and biscuit crumbs. Other suitable foods for birds include mild grated cheese, cooked or uncooked rice, dry porridge oats, cooked potatoes and fruit.
But please don't put out turkey fat. Turkey fat can be dangerous for garden birds, and can even kill them!After Christmas dinner, many people put the leftover contents of roasting tins outside for birds, wrongly believing it’s as good for them as other fats like lard and suet.
They pour the fat onto bird tables or mix it with seed thinking it will give them extra energy and much needed nutrients.
However, cooked turkey fat is completely unsuitable for birds for several reasons:
Birds are prone to bacterial infections at this time of year as their defences and energy levels are low because of the cold.
If you want to use the fat from your Christmas meat, just cut off the fatty bits BEFORE cooking. Uncooked fat from any meat is perfectly good bird food and very suitable for making bird cakes.
For more information you can read the whole story from the RSPB here.
Morning everyone!
I hope you are well.
Did you enjoy your Christmas Day and Boxing Day?
The reserve is open as usual so you can get out of the house and enjoy a nice stroll!
This morning Keith (Leads Volunteer) and myself went for a little wander and I thought I would let you know what we've seen:
Draper hide - shoveler, teal, gadwall, tufted duck, coot, moorhen, mute swan, black headed gull, magpie, crow and pigeon.
Ashby hide - gadwall, tufted duck, coot, moorhen, cettis warbler. A visitor heard a 'plop' as a creature went into the little ditch that you cross to go to the hide... it could have been a watervole (it has been quite mild so they might still be around. They don't hibernate, but usually spend winter underground in a set of tunnels to avoid the bad weather.)
Lagoon hides (Tern and Gadwall) - gadwall, teal, mallard, tufted duck, shelduck, shoveler, cormorant, grey heron, coot, moorhen, black headed gull, magpie, crow, blue tit, great tit, wren, and 77 lapwing!
Trails - robin, starling, blackbird, song thrush, fieldfare, blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, chaffinch, wren, green woodpecker, pigeon, crow, magpie, mute swan, mallard, and cormorant.
Happy spotting!Lou
Merry Christmas to you all!
Fab picture by Mark Hamblin (rspb-images.com)
Have a wonderful Christmas and all the best for the New Year!
Don't forget we are closed today and tomorrow (Boxing Day), but do some over from Tuesday onwards (even New Years eve and day) (from 10 am until dusk) come say hi!