Just a short posting, as this is my first spell on duty for 2014, I’ll bid you a belated Happy New Year! from a somewhat soggy Blashford Lakes Reserve.
First things first. One of our regular visitors, Ian Sibsey, whilst watching from the Lapwing hid was lucky enough to see a great northern diver early today. Also reported were a black-necked grebe and large numbers of pintail.
Given the predicted weather conditions we had cancelled a proposed birdwatching walk today and although the rain wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, this was just as well as it wouldn’t have been much fun. Even the ducks on Ivy lake didn’t seem to be very impressed by the conditions. The rain also deterred many prospective visitors and I didn’t see more than four people before mid-day. Those visitors who did ‘flood in’ later were rewarded with views of both lesser redpoll and mealy redpoll together with good numbers of siskin.
As no blog is really complete without a picture here’s a sample of the wonderful display of snowdrops close to the Centre car-park.
Just a small clump of snowdrops.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 