Latest sightings
All of us on the reseve team are looking forward to welcoming in the new year and starting the Martin Mere patch list again. 2020 has been a rubbish year for many thing but we have had some great sightings.
Highlights include rarities for the site - 2 Common cranes, 2 Snow geese and Wilson's Phalarope. New birds breeding on the site this year include Med gull and Marsh Harrier. It was a great breeding year for Cetti's warbler with 16 pairs this year (9 pairs last year), also a good year for whitetroats, 24 pairs this year and lots more sedge warblers (61 pairs) and reed warblers (40 pairs).
Unfortunately covid did have some negative effects. We didnt get enough surveys in to get the productivity data for the bearded tits, at least 8 were seen but we dont know how many youngsters we had this year. Due to the lack of visitors in the grounds during our first lockdown our shelduck numbers were down as there wasnt any hand feeding they left and hopefully bred elsewhere we still had 75 pairs and lots of those gorgeous humbug ducklings though.
We are going to be out on Jan 1st to start our year list, today we have seen 70 species highlights 5 Marsh harriers, Merlin, Peregrine, Curlew, Oystercatchers, Great white egret, Raven and 3 stonechat.
