Thursday 30 December 2010

A tangerine for Christmas

Nice news was a brief glimpse of a tangerine orange, male great spotted woodpecker at the centre feeders on Tuesday . Many of you may be familiar with the topillus subspecies from its forays in the media - but one has not been seen for 6 momths since an orange juv was seen in the car park. Whether this is the original or its offspring I cannot say, but at least they are still present. I managed one brief shot through the office window - colours as ever unaltered:

Good numbers of brambling remain on the feeders:

Along with the willow tit:

Siskin have been recorded in big numbers today - with one count of 40 and another of 20 elsewhere coming in. A big influx of goosander arrived at the reserve this morning too - with up to 8 on D reservoir, and being seen along the river and in flight over our bonfire. A lone pink-footed goose was also present on D.

Martin also managed the bittern working the river today, and Tony got some great results yet again from his Christmas and Boxing day vigils in North Marsh (Also check out his new-look page for some of his amazing pics from Hungary).

Whilst there is some open water appearing again on D res, O is still frozen - but at least these wigeon found some sanctuary from the Christmas shoots there:

On Watton carrs this redshank was enjoying new mud for the first time in a month (though the mist from the thaw had settled on the camera lens!):

Whilst on the pylons this peregrine made a brief stop before carrying on its business:



Both a great spotted woodpecker and a woodcock have been reported partially eaten today - but not sure for whom to attribute blame - certainly the female sparrowhawk was working the residential area gardens this morning, and the merlin is still at large too.

Tomorrow is the last day of the BTO challenge so any last unrecorded sp. would be welcome! Totals to be posted soon...

Remember new years day is the year listing event - walks at 10am and 1pm.

All the best for the new year, and may it be filled with interesting wildlife of all kinds...