Latest Sightings
The temperature has suddenly warmed and much of the ice covering the reserve is melting away. The teal have returned to Woodend marsh with around 300 there this morning along with 2 snipe and a flythrough kingfisher and a grey wagtail. Pink-footed goose numbers are fluctuating but remaining quite low, they can still be seen flying over much of the reserve and sometimes viewable on the ground from United Utilities hide and on Sunley's from Ron Barker. Whooper Swan numbers are still at around 600 and the majority of them can be seen on the mere, with a few on the water in front of harrier hide.
Wildfowl numbers on the reserve in general are doing great! large number of pintail, wigeon, shelduck and coot can be seen on the mere along with shovelers, teal and the odd tufted duck and pochard. From harrier hide tufted duck numbers are now getting into double figures and you can get good views of shovelers in The Sluice from Ron Barker hide.
Around 22 ruff are now regularly seen on the mere along with up to 4 Black-tailed godwits. Snipe seem to appear in different places all of over the reserve and there has been two sightings of jack snipe in the past week, one flew from a ditch near Kingfisher hide and the other from a ditch near Gordon Taylor. There has also been two sightings of woodcock, one from the reedbed and the other along Catty bank.
The feeders at Janet Kear are still frequented by goldfinches, greenfinches and chaffinches and there was a flyover brambling on the 13th. A pair of Bullfinches were in the hedgerow near Gordon Taylor and perhaps the strangest sighting was a water rail running down Catty bank towards Gladstone hide this morning!
An exciting sighting from the past week was a Siberian chiffchaff seen on the public footpath near the sewage works at the back of the reserve on the 14th, hopefully it reappears!
