RXwildlife Sightings

Highlights this morning have included 115 Dunlin and 21 Grey Plover along the shore, 4 Scaup (2 drake) and 5 Goldeneye (1 drake) on Harbour Farm pools, Spotted Redshank and Green Sandpiper at Ternery pool. At Castle Water a Common Buzzard and at least 4 Marsh Harrier (3 male) were present in the area, a Bittern showed well from the hide, another two Bittern, Bearded Tit, Kingfisher and Cettis Warbler gave flight views from the Viewpoint. Fieldfares were still around in good numbers with at least 100 present in fields at the northern end of the main pit.

Bittern at Castle Water hide.

Unfortunately, the main site is closed today due to deep snow drifts on the access track and nature trail. It is also unadvisable to attempt to get into the ARC car park as the entrance is very icy this morning. We do not foresee any change in these conditions over the weekend but please phone the reserve on 01797 320588 for up-to-date information.

The short haired bumblebee project aims to reintroduce this extinct bumblebee to the RX area from English stock exported to New Zealand over 100 years ago.  One of the hurdles to be overcome is to get a stock of captive reared queens for importing back here.  We did not know if this would be easy to do or not, however Nikki Gammans has been over in New Zealand catching wild queens for a captive rearing project.  This is starting to produce the goods, well workers and males so far anyway.  Read about progress in Nikki’s blog.