Something of an exciting week for a ‘dull time of year.’ First up is a reported female red-footed falcon seen on the Southern Marshes this afternoon. We hasten to add this was seen by two observers whom apparently had good views for 2 minutes of the bird, and had also seen the amur falcon in 2008, but at this stage we class this as a ‘for info’ and would not advise twitching it until we can get any further confirmation.
Secondly the purple heron has been seen again this week, including two separate probable sightings today over the Southern site. There is a possibility that this is the same bird from April, but we would be quick to add that there have only been sightings of a lone bird. Jeff Cohen managed an excellent photograph on Sunday of it in flight viewable on Flickr here:
On a similar vein is the osprey hopefully something for future years, and Monday saw a pair of common cranes overshoot Watton NR.
Other news includes the drake garganey – still on Watton NR today – and the little grebes we heard chuckling around the site last month seem to all have young now – simply visit any marsh…
Lots of big snakes again – usually East Pond being the best place to see them and marsh harrier and hobby have been picked up around site.
Finally the strong winds of Monday did some more damage to the D woods, as such we have closed off part of it until we can get our contractors in to sort it out.
