Sightings on the reserve – July 2025

Mark Hill and myself did the Pensthorpe bird count Thursday morning. It was a beautiful sunny day with a light south westerly and temperatures of 19⁰c – 23⁰c. The oppressive heat of the last week had gone and the air was much fresher.

The water levels were extremely low. This was especially noticeable at the Wetland Scrape with the far side mostly mud. There was very little river water feeding into it. We both agreed this was the lowest we had ever seen it.

The most noticeable thing about our visit was the low number of species – just 57. Amazingly, we had got as far as the woodland hide before we saw a robin! This was not the case with butterflies however. They were everywhere and we observed, large white, small white, peacock, red admiral, comma, gatekeeper, speckled wood, small skipper, small heath, ringlet, tortoiseshell and meadow brown. There were also numerous day flying moths and dragonflies.

Our most noteworthy spots were greenshank and two green sandpipers taking advantage of the exposed mud at the Wetland Scrape.

We saw three raptors – red kites, buzzards and two marsh harriers. The first buzzard we saw had numerous tail feathers missing which stumped us for ID for a minute or two. At least that meant it didn’t get counted twice!

At the Wader Scrape we watched two adult avocets trying to protect a very young chick from predatory gulls. We ran into fellow WVBS member Nick Parsons who told us that yesterday (Wednesday) there had been two chicks so sadly it seems they had been unsuccessful defending one of them.

It had warmed up considerably by the time we finished. As we made our way back to the visitors centre we found a beautiful iridescent blue, black and brown Jay’s wing feather.

Kathy Blake and Mark Hill

Wensum Valley Birdwatching Society