Reserve update - whilst we are closed let us bring the reserve to you
Whilst our Welney Wetland Centre is closed to the public, our much reduced team continue working behind the scenes. Caring for the wetland habitat and wildlife, bringing the reserve to you the only way we currently can on the website and social media.
Whilst our Welney Wetland Centre is closed to the public, our much reduced team continue working behind the scenes. Caring for the wetland habitat and wildlife, bringing the reserve to you the only way we currently can on the website and social media. Hopefully these weekly updates from the site will help you keep connected to our wildlife, the essential work that is carrying on and pull together links across our website and projects which you might find interesting.
Sightings this week have included wood sandpiper, at least 3 male garganey, common sandpiper, greenshank, Mediterranean gull, reed warblers returning, the first hobby of summer and the first corncrakes heard across the washes after dark.
On Sunday 3 May it was International Dawn Chorus Day, and despite the chilly start there are plenty of birds singing away in the reeds, the willows and across the washes. Highlights from Lady Fen a really close encounter with a calling garganey from the water, oystercatchers and redshank across the grassland and reed and corn bunting in the rushes and reeds.If you want to listen to a few wetland species as an alternative to a garden or woodland dawn chorus, the following blog post will help you do just that https://www.wwt.org.uk/discover-wetlands/waterlife-online/2020/03/12/the-alternative-dawn-chorus-ten-quirky-wetland-bird-calls-to-listen-out-for/18645
Cattle numbers have increased on the reserve this week with herds on both river banks and part of Lady Fen now. Our Grazing Officer, David Tough has taken these pictures of the herds settling down to grazing on his rounds.
As some of the returning black-tailed godwits are familiar faces, the Project Godwit team have complied recent arrivals into the following blog post - https://projectgodwit.org.uk/2020/05/01/good-godwit-news/
It is exciting to see April wildlife highlights from all our WWT sites around the UK, this handy blog has brought together all the best bits - April highlights - window on wetland wildlife
Here are a couple of other WWT conservation projects that we thought, as followers of WWT Welney, you might be interested in:
The conservation breeding team have started putting up new blogs about the spoon-billed sandpipers at Slimbridge. Spoon-billed sandpipers were the species the headstarting technique was originally used on in the field, ahead of Project Godwit in the UK. Read more here - Spoon-billed sandpiper
If you have ever visited Welney during the winter months, you might have been lucky enough to spot a Bewick’s swan. The rarest and smallest of the swan species found here. This blog post details how the Bewick’s make their migration from the UK to the Russian Tundra each summer and how WWT are working to protect the Bewick’s swans even in these challenging times - https://www.wwt.org.uk/news/2020/05/04/protecting-our-bewicks-on-the-tundra-despite-the-global-lockdown/18830
