First I was at Potteric Carr near Doncaster, visiting colleagues as Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. This was my first visit to the reserve, and its one I've heard loads about, driven past a few times but never visited. This year has been exciting for the team managing the reserve as bittern and marsh harrier have bred for the first time. The reserve is already huge, but there are plans in the near future to make it even bigger, incorporating more habitats catering for more species.
Find out more about the reserve here - http://www.ywt.org.uk/reserves/potteric-carr-nature-reserve
The following day I was in York for a training course with other colleagues from the Wildlife Trusts from around the UK. During the day we made a lunchtime visit to the nearby Askham Bog reserve, a wetland site designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The reserve is home to a wide array of wetland plants including a great display royal fern, orchids and the largest colony of gingerbread sedge in England.
I'll definitely be back in the summer to experience the reserve at its best, as well as take a proper look around York itself.
Find out more about the reserve - http://www.ywt.org.uk/reserves/askham-bog-nature-reserve
The weekend bought another trip, this time to visit the BTO headquarters in Thetford, Norfolk, for the Regional Network meeting. I act as the regional representative for the BTO in Staffordshire, helping co-ordinate the local volunteers for national surveys along with two other volunteers who run BBS (Breeding Bird Survey) and WeBS (Wetland Bird Survey).
The Nunnery is a shrine of birding information, with a library packed with every conceivable ornithological book you could wish for, and equally dazzling collection of reports from around the UK including counties and bird observatories.
It was great to meet my counterparts from other counties and hear about the exciting range of surveys that the BTO have planned for the coming years, should funding allow. They include breeding waders, seabirds and all 5 species of owl.
One survey that is definitely taking place is the house martin survey in 2015. If you're interested in taking part, register your interest online through the BTO's website and your details will be passed to your local organiser ahead of the survey starting in spring.
The BTO note that: "We know surprisingly little about house martins despite the fact that they breed alongside us, using our houses on which to build a nest made of hundreds of beakfuls of mud. Critically, we do not know why this species is in rapid decline in the UK. Currently, it is ‘Amber listed’ in the Birds of Conservation Concern listings, compiled by the UK’s leading conservation agencies.
Why survey House Martins now? We need to discover more about house martins to help us identify why they are declining and provide scientific evidence to help inform policy decisions that could reverse the declines. The survey, over the next two years, will collect more information on population size, breeding ecology and habitat preferences, so we can begin to tackle some key questions about this eagerly awaited summer visitor."
You can find out more details on the survey here - http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/house-martin-survey
To make full use of the weekend, I stayed over night in Thetford rather than travel back home, so that I could visit Welney to see the winter swans and ducks on this brilliant Wildfowl & Wetland Trust reserve. I approached the reserve along the A1101, passing through extensive flat farmland near the reserve where hundreds of swans can be seen feeding in the fields. Also present was a large mixed flock of lapwing and golden plover, always a delight to see!
At the reserve itself, the main observatory (and its heating system!) were a welcome treat on a drizzly day. Just a few feet in front of the hide, several whooper swans passed by, moving through a flock of pochard. Several snipe were flitting back and forth between the tussocks of exposed vegetation, and a large flock of black-tailed godwits would occasionally take flight after being flushed by a sparrowhawk.
I highly recommend a visit to the reserve. More details can be found here - http://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/welney/
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