Sep 18th Strumpshaw Fen

Water Rail

I must be dreaming! It is Wednesday and its not raining! Its a miracle! It was actually a nice day, though a bit chilly and autumnal. I was hoping to walk to Tower Hide before my shift this morning, but I soon discovered that I couldn't. This was because Sandy Wall was being repaired and a fence was blocking the section of the path leading beyond the Fen Hide's little path. I had no choice but to check out the Fen Hide instead. A juvenile water rail made an appearance wading along the near left edge of the pool, while a flock of bearded tits were pinging loudly and provided brief glimpses as they shyly moved from reed bed to reed bed. I also saw a great spotted woodpecker attempting to mob a buzzard perched in a tree by the tree line to my right. Not a bad selection of birds, though I wouldn't have minded checking out the great white egret at the Tower Hide to see if it was there or not.

Returning to the office to prepare the bird food that I needed for refilling the bird feeders, I learnt that the maintenance work at Sandy Wall was now in the progress of switching ends. This meant that the section leading from the fingerpost up to the Fen Hide was the part being closed off to visitors. However, the meadow trail was going to be reopen and acting as a detour so that you can still get to Fen Hide without making the long way round through the woodland trail and then walk along the river pass the pumphouse. In other words, everywhere is still open as usual.

Kngfisher

From Reception Hide, an osprey was seen 15 minutes before the hide's opening time. It returned about an hour later and I was able to see it flying in the distance over by the Tower Hide area, but it wasn't quite as satisfying of a view as last week. A bittern also showed up a couple of times this morning in the reed beds surrounding the broad, but sadly, I missed it on both occasions. At least I was more lucky with a kingfisher making a quick visit close to the hide. More could be said about the jack snipe that was apparently being fairly active in the fresh reed stubble and mud that was even closer to the hide, but despite scanning for it on numerous occasions, I just couldn't find this incredibly well camouflaged little wader. Oh well! At least its not raining.