Spring does seem to be in the air!
Walking round Pony Wood I spotted a new blue tit occupant for one of our recently donated nest boxes (P9).
In the Arable field was a peacock butterfly.
A couple of mistle thrushes were also in the Arable field, and a magpie was seen overflying with nest material.
In the extension to Pony Wood was a red admiral butterfly and about 12 linnets were feeding around the feeding tables. One linnet in the nearby tree lined up for its photo.
30/3/21 – Blue tit seen coming out of bird box F1 which is at the junction of orchard path/path to Cromwell Road on tree above the bench.
The team made a return to the marshes this morning for the March snipe count. Seriously delayed, but thankfully not cancelled like January and February. Heavy going over the very wet ground. However the snipe seem quite happy with the conditions as there were a fair number still around this late in the season. 38 flushed overall, eight of which were jack. 10 of the birds –including one jack – in School Pond, the rest in Big Meadow. An encouraging showing of meadow pipits: 2 in Hay Meadow, 2 in School Pond (plus a moorhen) and three in Big Meadow. Graham also reported a brown hare in West Field seen on his reserve inspection prior to the count.
Dan’s winter bird survey will shortly be on the website and on drop box ( where the maps will be included)
Fraser reported seeing a cormorant in West Field ( several days ago) and two curlew in Big Meadow. His message says – “the one that is lame seems to have a friend”. I wasn’t aware that one was lame.
Thanks to all who have posted recently – wonderful to read about your sightings and to see your photos!
For anyone posting images, if you’d like visitors to see larger versions of your images, just select ‘Media file’ in the ‘Link to’ dropdown menu when you’re adding the image to your post (click screenshot below to see where this is and the ‘back’ button on your browser to return to the blog):
A pair of song thrushes near Cromwell gate on Saturday. I think of thrushes as solitary birds so perhaps this is a sign that spring is really springing.
A male brimstone butterfly was in Arable Field yesterday.
Steve
As well as the kestrel in Pony wood, there were both a male and female stonechat in the Arable field (see above) and 6 shelduck and 2 oystercatchers in the scrape in West Field.
WANTED! Your Wildlife Sightings
The Fauna and Flora fields are being actively managed for wildlife. In particular, we are trying to encourage Brown Hare, Snipe, Lapwing and Starling, Grey Partridge and Tree Sparrow. (These are all ‘feature species’ in our agreement with Natural England.) Hare and Snipe have been doing well since Fauna was established. Amazingly, a couple of Grey Partridge appeared in the West Field in Flora only a few weeks after the scrape was dug. And Lapwing have been seen displaying over the arable field following the ploughing.
Note: During the nesting season, please send sightings of ground-nesting birds, such as lapwings and oyster-catchers, directly to sue AT nieduszynski DOT org to avoid them being disturbed. Many thanks!
We would be very grateful for your help in monitoring our success in attracting these species. And we would also love to hear of any interesting wildflowers, insects, small mammals that you spot, as well as any other birds that you see in the reserve and in Fairfield Orchard too.
All of this information will assist us in our management of the nature reserve. It will also provide us with evidence to feed back to Funders, such as Natural England and the Heritage Lottery, and to support future funding applications.
Please tell us about your sightings on this blog – ideally giving time, date, location and numbers.
Note: you will need to register to be able to add posts – please email us directly at fairfieldassociation2014 AT gmail DOT com to request access.