My first visit of the year to Blacktoft. Just after 10am when I arrived and I was only the third visitor of the day. As I walked towards Marshland hide I met Stu who was on duty. After a short chat he continued with his survey work and I went to Marshland hide. The lagoon was iced over with a few snipe on two of the little islands along with 2 lapwings.
Ousefleet was my next stop and apart from a few goldfinches feeding in the tree tops near the hide, the area was a bird free zone. I walked back onto the main part of the reserve and went into Xerox hide. The lagoon was frozen over like the other lagoons and therefore no birds to be seen.
Stuart and I then met and walked just outside the reserve and we used my telescope to look at a small group of swans that were feeding a couple of fields away. They were a mixture of mute and whooper swans.
Stuart then went to fill up the bird feeders while I went to First hide and had lunch. After lunch I went to Townend hide and as the water was frozen I went to Singleton hide and stayed there until dusk. Stuart asked me to monitor the harrier roost, but very few harriers came into roost. A male marsh harrier was sitting in a bush and as I was watching it I noticed a small bird fly past the bush. I watched it through my binoculars and saw it was a merlin, I then noticed two birds in another bush and looking through my telescope I was able to see that they were song thrushes. They were my 3rd tick of the day and brought my year total to 100.
Just as I was about to leave I noticed something in the distance. It was a starling murmuration. Too far away to get any decent pictures, but I hope that you get an idea from these. I think that the main murmuration was near Alkborough.
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