Happy New Year

Well a Happy New year to all our followers, we hope you had a pleasant and safe one. As you may know, the Visitor Centre has been closed over the festive period, so not much to report. However, that said, we can confirm that we not only have a Bittern on site, we have two! Yes, two were spotted at the same time on different parts of the reserve, the first was spotted at the double-decker hide at Jason's pool and the other bittern was spotted at Steggall's in Wilson's Flood. If you've been down and got photos of the Bittern and want to show them off, the please email them to us at lackford.centre@suffolkwildlifetrust.org and we will post them on our next blogpost.

Other sightings over the last few days include the usual suspects of Goldeneye, Pintail, Goosander, Teal, Pochard and Little Egret on our various lakes, whilst Siskin's, Bullfinches, Kingfisher, Cetti's Warbler, Marsh and Coal tit's are also visible around the reserve and Visitor Centre as is the Sparrowhawk too!

Male Bullfinch outside the centre taken by our volunteer Judith Wakelam

Our Starlings are also murmurating around the Visitor Centre, which we had expected to have finished by now. Yet they still continue to draw in the crowds with over 70 people attending on New Years day to see the show.

Looking forward to 2015

We have lots of exciting stuff happening in 2015 starting with a bit of a revamp for the Visitor Centre. This means that the centre will be closed for a few days whilst the staff and volunteers get busy making the Visitor Centre an even better place to visit. The centre will be closed on the following days:

Monday 19th January

Tuesday 20th January

Wednesday 21st January

Thursday 22nd January

We will re-open on Friday 23rd January at 10am.

One of the new additions to the centre will be a live feed TV from various wildlife cameras situated around the centre.  A big thank you goes to Hughes Electrical of Stowmarket for donating a new TV to the trust so you can watch the comings and goings of various wildlife whilst you enjoy a cuppa and some cake in the centre.

2015 also sees us introducing some themed weekends for all the family starting with 'Winter Ducks' in February. Also keep your eyes on the forthcoming events list on the right-hand side of this blog, there's always something to do.

Plans are also in the pipeline for a summer time Bioblitz, where, in a 24 hour period, members of the public young and old, expert and novice will search our reserve to list every living creature that dwells here. It's something that has never been done at Lackford and the results could be a real eye-opener, so watch this space!