Sunny end

 

On duty in reception at Blacktoft on Sunday. I arrived at 0745 and visited all the hides. It was still a bit misty, and it was starting to rain. By the time that Daz had arrived, and we opened the reception hide the rain had got heavier and as the morning wore on the rain increased. At one point it was impossible to hear yourself speak due to the noise of the rain on the roof!

A few people were brave enough to come out in the heavy downpour of rain and enjoyed sitting in a hide on their own. After lunch the weather improved, and more visitors came.

The marsh harriers became more active

This male was hunting quite close to the reception hide. Where the digger had been and deposited mud etc from the ditch, lots of birds were searching for food, which in turn attracted the harriers. The kingfisher was also in the ditch but was unable to find anything to perch on. Perhaps we can put a few sticks into the ditch and then visitors can enjoy watching it fish.

 By 4pm when we closed the reception hide it was a pleasant evening. The reserve is open until 6pm at the moment, but that will change this week when summertime ends. I volunteered to lock up and decided to go and sit in Singleton hide.

Redshank, dunlin, ruff and snipe were on the lagoon. At the far end of the centre channel, I saw a bittern.

Terrible pictures as the bittern was too far away for me to get a reasonable photo, but hopefully you can find the bird. It remained in view for about 45 minutes before it went back into the reed bed. A pleasant end to the day.