Latest Sightings

Breeding season is well underway, with more and more eggs and chicks cropping up every day.

We surveyed the mere for black headed gull nests today: there was a total of 591 nests and 1140 eggs! The islands were also crawling with chicks, some just hatched, some already walking and swimming around. You can see them from Discovery hide, they are well camouflaged though so look carefully.

Mediterranean gulls are consistently seen and more often heard on the mere.

There are 7 avocet pairs on avocet island at the back of the mere, each with 3 to 4 eggs. There is also one avocet nest on plover field and at least four nests on Woodend marsh.

The common tern are also prospecting avocet island, with at least three pairs seeming to be making nests.

There are at least 3 marsh harrier pairs on site, you can see them dropping into and out of the reeds where they make their nests.

We have at least one pair of tree sparrows and one pair of house sparrows confirmed breeding on site, and had sightings of treesparrows at Kingfisher and Raines hide.

A group of 10 fledgling long tailed tits were lined up on a branch outside Kingfisher hide yesterday, their parents flitting around gathering food for them.

The swallows are busy building nests and feeding their partners in the visitor centre eaves. Two swifts were seen above Ron Barker hide yesterday.

A whinchat was seen from Tomlinson hide yesterday.

We’ve had a new high of 5 cattle egrets this week.

The cuckoos have been calling on the reedbed. Also singing from within the reedbed are plenty of reed and sedge warblers, and willow warblers and chiffchaffs around the more treed edges.

We’ve had the canoe safari sightings in, and they are: tufted duck, mallard, pochard, shelduck, coot, moorhen, blackbird, robin, magpie, crow, rook, raven, jay, marsh harrier, sparrowhawk, kestrel, buzzard, wren, chaffinch, goldfinch, long tailed tit, blue tit, great tit, coal tit, feral pigeon, wood pigeon, willow warbler, chiff chaff, blackcap, cettis warbler, reed warbler, greylag goose, cuckoo, common tern and kingfisher.