55 whooper swans now at our feeds

We're now getting up to 55 whooper swans, and up to 28 mute swans at our daily feeds.

On Sunday we saw 55 whooper swans on our feed pond, 5 of which were the lovely silvery juveniles. The weather forecast looks like it may well bring some more birds in from Iceland, with favourable winds and good weather later in the week, so do keep an eye on our latest sightings updates for more named birds appearing.

So far we have seen 8 named birds return, detailed in a list at the bottom right of this article. Come along to see them and learn a little more about these amazing birds at our commentated swan feeds at 11am and 2pm, every day.

It's getting busier along the merse, with thousands of dunlin, oystercatchers and starlings regularly taking to the air, and hundreds of shelduck calmly feeding or floating in the shallow estuary. The latest barnacle geese count was 5000, on Monday. You are very likely to see a hen harrier when you visit, with daily sightings from saltcot merse observatory. We still have regular numbers of black-tailed godwit occupying the folly pond, and the ducks are quickly growing their winter breeding plumage, with the males getting more and more beautiful every day. The mallards have almost completely finished this transformation, with the teal and shoveler still part way through. It's lovely to see the yellow stripe reappearing on the male wigeons too.

A few flocks of quietly chattering long-tailed tits have been seen playfully flitting between bushes laden with berries on the avenues too, as well as stonechats at saltcot merse.

This week's high tide times are:

tues 19/10 - 1133, 2342
wed 20/10 - 1205
thurs 21/10 - 0016, 12.35
fri 22/10 - 0048, 1304
sat 23/10 - 0119, 1343
sun 24/10 - 0150, 1403

Photo Credit: Alex Hillier

As well as this week's highlights, you are likely to see the following on the reserve:

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