Do you know your gulls?

Well the Iceland Gull is still showing on the sailing lake and Peter Rutt took this photo of the gull in the gull roost. But can you tell which one is the Iceland Gull?

Where’s the Iceland Gull?

The answer will be posted at the end of the blog, no cheating! Also spotted on the sailing lake amongst the 15,000 strong gull roost this week, have been several Yellow-legged gulls. Both these and the Iceland gull have proved to be quite an attraction of late.

Half-term activities

As many of you will know, it's been half-term this week and we've had many activities here at Lackford, designed to educate and occupy the youngsters whilst away from school.

One of the most popular events, and one to get fully booked early, is the bird box building event.  

Great fun building the boxes.

And everyone who build a box got to take it home for their garden.

Many hands make light work.

 We also had nature trails for the youngsters to follow with questions and answers

 And there was also the opportunity to make your own bird feeders using pine cones, lard and bird seed, which was also popular.

Messy, but fun

 On Friday, the end of half-term was brought to an end with 27 Young Wardens between 10-15 Years helping with the coppicing of Alder at Lackford.

The Young Wardens get to work

All were rewarded with a tasty jacket potato for lunch

Away from the reserve

Unusually this week, we're going to drag you off to Shiplake, Oxfordshire where artist Wendy Nicholson resides. Wendy visited Lackford whilst on holiday and was lucky enough to get to see one of our Kingfishers. Wendy was so inspired by what she saw, that she created this beautiful textile Kingfisher

Textile Kingfisher by Wendy Nicholson

We would like to thank Wendy for sending this picture in and allowing us to share it with you. You can see more of Wendy's amazing work here.

The unveiling 

As many of you now know, Hughes Electrical of Stowmarket have very kindly donated us the large 42" Flatscreen LED for visitors to watch our wildlife cameras on. Well this week, Richard Whymark from Hughes came down to present us with the plaque which will hang proudly next to the TV. The press (Bury Free and EADT) were also there to mark the occasion and BBC Radio Suffolk also came down to talk to us about our wildlife cameras.

Visitor assistant Hawk Honey accepts the plaque from Richard Whymark.

For those of you who missed the radio interview, you can hear it again here and just move the slider along to 2:41:40.

Sightings

It's been a busy week on the sightings front with the welcome news that after spending their winter around the coast of Britain, Great Crested Grebe's have come back ready for spring at Long reach and the Sailing lake.

The Bittern made a surprise appearance in the week by walking about out in the open, away from its well camouflaged backdrop of reeds. Ken and Jane Rowe were there to catch the occurrence on camera

Bittern out in the open at Steggall's © Jane Rowe

The Little Egret has also been spotted several times around the reserve.

Little Egret © Rich Berry

Little Egret © Jane Rowe

Gold crest, Bullfinch and Siskin have been spotted along Ash Carr. Tree Sparrows have been sighted on the field feeders along Church Walk, a lovely bird to see.

The Kingfisher has been very active this week on the visitor centre pond, being sighted every day this week.

Kingfisher © Jane Rowe

Reed Buntings were spotted at the Double-decker hide and Goldeneye have been showing at the Sailing lake along with 14 Shoveller ducks. Snipe at the Slough and Buzzard's  have been seen overhead.

Don't forget to check our sightings board in the visitor centre when we're open for latest sightings, or to add your own sightings. The board is sited next to our interactive map which is updated regularly to where the latest sightings happen.

Our interactive map with photo bird counters denoting sightings.

As you can see, sightings are marked with photo counters, we currently need some more counters. So if you have any pictures of Siskins, Tree Creeper, Great Crested Grebe and Sparrowhawk that we could use, then please forward them to us at lackford.centre@suffolkwildlifetrust.org

The answer

So, do you know your gulls? At the start we asked you if you could spot the Iceland Gull from the picture, lets see if you were right?

Iceland Gull circled