Lackford Lakes is a twice designated SSSI Suffolk Wildlife Trust nature reserve situated in West Suffolk just north of Bury St Edmunds. It has 11 lakes with 9 hides and spans over 360 acres of ex-gravel extraction works. The reserve has a visitor centre that is open Tuesday - Sunday and Bank Holidays.
Showing posts with label Suffolk WildlifeTrust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suffolk WildlifeTrust. Show all posts
Friday, 2 September 2016
Summer is still with us.. but for how much longer
With the warm weather still apon us there is no let up on the dragonflies and insects on the wing. With this late summer warmth its introduced anoticeable increase of migrant hawker dragonflies along with ruddy & common darter and brown hawker.
A willow emerald damselfly is new for the year near Bess’s hide.
The first grayling of the year was seen last weekend and a purple hairstreak has beenreported recently. Along with good numbers of brown argus, common blue, peacock, red admiral, comma and painted lady butterflies, the reserve total is now at 25 species for the year.
Plently of Birds on the reserve
The birds on the reserve are stable with common sandpiper & green sandpiper and common terns as our main visitors along with our first ever black-tailed godwit this was spotted out on the Slough
Recently an osprey has been spotted over Lackford and is now being seen more often, please keep a look out for this beautiful bird as it migrates south. Also we have had a wheatear spotted on site.
The kingfishers are still putting on a beautiful show at (slough & eastern lakes) so why not pop down and see these beautiful birds. Kingfishers are a small and unmistakable bright blue and orange bird, that fly rapidly, low over the water and hunt fish from riverside perches. They will occasionally hover above the water's surface before diving for their food.
This week some of our volunteers were out and about checking our nest boxes after this years broods and came across a tree sparrow nest. We beleive that this maybe the first time they are nested at Lackford and we very much hope that we will return next year.
Smaller than house sparrow, they have a chestnut brown head and white cheeks and collar with a black cheek spot.
This Saturday 3rd September we have our family bat walk, we will leave the visitor centre at 8pm and return at 10pm. Please bring a torch with you but bat dectors will be used.
On Saturday 10th September we have our Naturally Art event. From 10 am to 12pm Art activities will be undertaken with the inspiration of the wild
Dont forget to check out our website for all our events: Lackford Lakes We look forward to seeing you soon.
Well the sun is out and lets hope its here to stay. Over the last week the temperature has been rising and providing us with more opportunities to see amazing insects on the wing.
With the increase of temperature we are currently at 11 species of dragonfly and 17 species of butterfly.
Butterflies and dragonflies continue to impress our visitors at the reserve. Various brown butterflies and skippers are present in good numbers along with favourites such as ringlet, speckled wood and green veined white. Not new to the list but making a reappearance is red-eyed damselfly and the larger hawker dragonflies. With the clear blue skies ans warm weather why not pop along to the reserve.
Our kingfishers are doing well with another brood due
to fledge in the next few weeks while birds from the first family are
being seen regularly. The Double Decker hide and Hawker Pool sites are
still the best with regular sightings at the visitor centre pool as well.
Over the last few weeks wading birds have been seen more and move over on The Slough. green sandpipers and a common sandpiper areregulars along with the occasional little ringed plover putting in a brief appearance. Please let us know if you spot any other birds to the centre.
The summer holidays have started so why not visit Lackford Lakes and get reconnected with nature. There is plently happening from organised events to daily activities (details can be found on our website) Lackford Lakes, or click on one of the links found on the right of this page to find out about the many activities we have on offer.
We have organised events throughout August, please book online www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org - full details are on the website but here is a slice of what we have to offer.
Family Fridays - every Friday 2 - 4pm
Wednesday Family mornings - 3rd & 17th August
Activity mornings for 4-7 year olds Tuesday 9th & Tuesday 23rd August @ 10.30am - 12.30pm
Activity days for 8-12 year olds Thursday 11th & Thursday 18th August @10.30am - 2.30pm
Dont forget we have our daily activities in the summer, where you can get a spotter sheet and go looking for insects and wildlife. Or why not borrow one of our bug hunting kits and see what you can find.
Special Events not to be missed.
Beautiful butterflies weekend. Saturday 6th & Sunday 7th August - During this weekend there will be wildlife guides present to help you spot those butterflies.
On Sunday 7th August there will also be a special butterfly themed wildlife wander, where visitors can join a guide to go looking for these butterflies.
Changes on the way.
In the coming months we will be making improvements to the Kingfisher trail to improve your experience at the reserve. Currently we are also working on two spots - building a bigger hide overlooking the Slough where the old reed hide used to be. This will become Bernard's hide and will offer you closer views across the Slough to look for those waders. We are also building a platform not far from the centre that will overlook Bernard's pool. Allowing you the perfect location to watch dragonflies and butterflies.
Well a big happy New Year to everyone and we hope the holiday period went well for all of you and your families. The New Year here at Lackford got off to a wonderful start with the centre being open on New Years day, and the turn out to Paul's New Year's Day Bird Walk saw many people in attendance. this helped get our Year's Bird list off to a fine start with 62 species of bird being spotted on the first day. You may remember, we ended 2015 with 136 species of bird seen at Lackford and already on the first day, we're almost halfway there.
The bird list at the end of New Year's Day. We know it say's 60, two were not reported till later, which
were Common Gull and Magpie.
Currently, the list now stands at 75 with a new bird for Lackford being added last week. Over the last weekend, there were several reports of a great northern diver on a lake not too far from Lackford. However, on Tuesday it disappeared, only to turn up on our Sailing Lake. Big thanks to our resident birder Paul Holness for spotting it. Regular visitor to the lakes and photo contributor to the blog Ian Goodall, managed to get these cracking shots. Thanks Ian.
Great Northern Diver on the Sailing lake by Ian Goodall
It only stayed for a short while before flying off in an easterly direction. We hoped that it would land on the east lakes and join our Long-tailed duck, who is still showing well on Hawker pool and Long Reach, but alas, it wasn't so.
A little bit of work
Many of the visitors to Lackford may have noticed we've been having a bit of work done on The Slough. Thanks to an anonymous donation, we are re-profiling The Slough in an effort to bring the wildlife closer to the hides. The work will involve making some new spits of land closer in, creating a shallows and removing some small amount of reed-bed.
The view from Reed hide
As you can imagine, the wildlife that usually frequents The Slough has decided to move to the East Lakes part of the reserve with many of the teal, gadwall, shoveller and others being found on Mill Deep and can be seen from Fullers Mill hide.
The major work started just before Xmas and should be completed towards the end of the month. There will also be some revamping and moving of the hides and we will keep you posted as to what and when this is happening.
The new shallows being created.
Yet, come the evening when the work has stopped, the goosanders still come in to roost on The Slough and whilst some of these photos were being taken, a kingfisher flew by. So it hasn't put off the wildlife that much and not before long, everything will be back to normal and hopefully even better than before.
Wildlife rescue
Just before Xmas, our resident birder Paul Holness found an injured male kestrel on the reserve. Despite there being no obvious injuries, the bird could not fly and so we contacted Phoenix Bird of Prey Rescuewho came and collected the bird. Their vet found no injuries either and it was most likely suffering some bruising. A couple of weeks of rest saw the bird return to full health and then returned to Lackford for release back to where it was found.
Paul with the kestrel shortly before release. Thanks to Jo Daffin.
A new booking system
We have a new online booking system in place for all events and activities at Lackford. All events are now bookable through the Trust's What's On page, or by clicking on the link to the right of this page in our 'Forthcoming events' section. For those of you who do not have internet access, you can book up by calling our head office on 01473 890089. We can no longer accept bookings at Lackford as we previously did, sorry.
It's not just photos!
Lackford is often frequented by photographers getting snapshots of our wildlife. But this week Richard Thewlis posted some of his lovely paintings of the Lackford wildlife on his Twitter account (@RThewlis) and has agreed to share them here, thank you Richard. I think you will agree, they are lovely paintings.
Teal by Richard Thewlis
Lapwing by Richard Thewlis
According to Richard, these were "Mad rush paint sketches". It would take me an age to paint something like this and still wouldn't be anywhere near as good as these paintings.
Sightings
Well, as previously stated, the long-tailed duck is still present on the reserve and can usually be found on either Hawker Pool or Long Reach, it's always best to pop in to the visitor centre to find out it's latest location on the day.
Siskin and redpoll have been seen altogether in large flocks around the visitor centre. Bullfinches have also been seen in their glorious winter colours around the visitor centre and the car park. Grey wagtail has been spotted on several occasions on the overflow car park and in Ash Carr near Hawker Pool. Goldcrests have also been a common sight at several places around the reserve, but especially in Ash Carr. Here you can also find some siskin flocks, marsh tit, nuthatch and treecreeper.
On the lakes, we have plenty of goldeneye, tufted duck, teal, pochard and wigeon in attendance. Little grebe can often be seen from Fullers Mill hide and little egret from Bess'. Kingfisher has also been showing well at Bess', Atlas and Steggall's as well as at the visitor centre. Here a jay has become a regular visitor to the feeder cam.
Great spotted woodpecker can also be seen visiting the nut feeder at the centre too. The gull roost on the sailing lake is still quite a sight to see, with over 10,000 birds coming in to roost every night. For those who like a challenge, there are still the odd rarity to be found amongst them such as yellow-legged gull. What else will be found and can be added to our ever increasing list?
Don't forget, no matter how insignificant you think your sighting is, please let the vitiator team know, you may add a bird to our species list that hasn't been recorded yet!
Last week we reported that there were around 800 starlings roosting at Lackford and that we could only hope that this would get bigger. Well it seems a lot of you were hoping too, because this week the murmuration increased to over 8000 starlings! As you can imagine, this is a sight to see and is well worth the trip. The murmuration happens right outside the Visitor Centre so you don't have to stand outside in the cold waiting for it to happen. You can come in and sit in the warmth with a cup of tea, coffee or chocolate and a nice slice of cake and wait for the aerial display to begin!
A small video can be seen here on our Facebook page. For those of you who cannot see this post on Facebook, here's some images. Hopefully, we'll get some more video that we can upload next week. In the meantime, if you have any pictures that you taken of this murmuration that you would like to share with us, please do, the link is on the right.
At ~8000 birds, this murmuration can be impressive, but don't forget, it wasn't many years ago when Lackford had over 30,000 birds murmuring here. So keep your fingers crossed. The best time to be here to grab a seat is around 3pm.
Just part of the murmuration over the Bernard Tickner hide
The path towards Bernard Tickner's hide.
Other sightings
We forgot to mention last week that Tree Sparrows were still being heard around the reserve, although not seen. So it's nice to know they are still about. Other sightings include 7 Goosanders, Goldeneye, Redwings, Coal and Marsh tits and Fieldfare, which seem to be on the increase this week. We've also heard via Twitter, that Waxwings have started to arrive on the Suffolk coastline, so here's hoping some make it further inshore too.
We also found this beauty visiting the Visitor Centre on Thursday 20th.
Peacock Butterfly looking for somewhere to overwinter.
These along with some other butterflies are always looking to come indoors now to sleep the winter out and if you find one in your home the best thing you can do is place it in your shed. Just make sure your shed has a few holes in it so that it can escape come spring.
Steggall's Hide
Work at the new hide has been proceeding well and it is now starting to look more like a hide thanks to all the work put it by our reserve team volunteers.
The walkway to the hide with screened sides.
In all weathers, the team work hard.
Looking good
Reserve Manager Will with some of the volunteers
The birds view of the hide.
Roof section on and the wonderful volunteers
Upcoming events
Don't forget to always check our forthcoming events on the righthand side of the blog, there may always be something there of interest for all. Next up is the Bird Identification and Song Guided Walk with our bird expert Paul Holness. We still have spaces, so if you're interested, get in touch and book your place!
