Flooded with Bitterns

It was raining hard as I arrived this morning, peering out from the Tern hide I could just make out 6 Bewick's swan, including a juvenile, slightly odd this as there have been three or four pairs and one juvenile, but this group must have contained a single adult.

The Dockens Water level was rising, although still quite low, as I first drove up to the Centre, however by lunchtime it was flooding right through the woods.

It was flowing through the alder carr and through the silt pond into Ivy Lake. By the end of the day the level had dropped by a few centimetres, however as I write now it is raining hard again so the flooding could be on a really dramatic scale tomorrow.

The feeders at the Centre are attracting loads of birds now, there were perhaps 30 brambling was with the chaffinch flock and there were also several lesser redpoll feeding with the siskin. The brambling seem to particularly like nyger seed, often feeding under the feeding siskin on the many seeds they discard.

The other day there was a suggestion that there might have been 3 bittern at the Ivy North hide, today this was confirmed with three birds seen at the one time. I only saw one, although the one I did see was performing very well.