Greyt sighting

Undoubted bird of the week showed up on North Marsh at 15:30 today - Bill Eggleton captured these shots of a stunning male hen harrier:

The resplendent bird appeared off the river and hunted the area around Hallytreeholme and North Marsh for around five minutes:

Shortly before 17:00 whilst on the telephone I was lucky enough to see the bird flying over the picnic tables of all places! So hopefully it'll grace us for a while yet.  Marsh Harrier also put in an appearance in the afternoon.  Otters have been showing very well in the last week; showing repeatedly all week on North Marsh and others - Bruce Pillinger got these great photos:

Along with Eddie Laker's too:

For those trying to spot the entrance to the new holt it's in the middle of this pic (we removed a couple of tree stumps that had the potential to regrow and block the view at huge input - but we are now 'done'):

This common buzzard too was over on Saturday's reserve walk:

And kestrel by Bill:

Predation has been the order of the day - this short tailed vole was the unhappy morsel for this grey heron:

Much happier was this bank vole that lives under the paving slabs under the feeders:

Above them the usual action - long tailed tits:

And the ubiquitous marsh tits:

We've been getting a bit worried the marsh tits have seen off the rarer willow tits - but Michael Flowers confirmed they are still very much present on Wednesday.  More details of Michael's visit here.  Other sightings have included yellow legged gull on Wednesday, and the pair of scaup still on D res:

Med gull was on the roost on Sunday night with little egrets regularly on the flooded Hempholme Meadow.  A fine drake shoveler on South Marsh by Bill: