Besthorpe - 5th May

I have been volunteering with the Notts Wildlife Trust for quite a while now, and we have been doing work over the last few months at Besthorpe Nature Reserve, near Newark. Huge amounts of re-landscaping have been done to attempt to create a better habitat for birds and other wildlife, including creating shallows and wet grassland around the large pit in the southern part of the reserve - as well as creating a sand martin bank and several islands. In the northern part of the reserve, we have been planting a new reedbed and hopefully in the future this area will be a haven for wetland wildlife.

While working there i have seen plenty of wildlife, but today we had a wander around the reserve before embarking on more reed planting and fencing, and over the day i saw so much birdlife, showing that it already is a great place for birds and will hopefully improve over time.

On the southern edge of the reserve on 'mons pool', there were lots of geese, but in the distance were several Shelduck pairs. Walking further round we noticed a few Little Ringed Plover which were running about on a small island. On further inspection it turned out there were as many as six birds, the most i've seen at once (well it beats ONE haha), as well as my first Dunlin of the year (and only my second ever!). We continued to walk round to look at the Sand Martins which i have seen a few times already here, and there were hundreds of them flying about like a swarm, going in and out of their nests in the sandbank that had been created for them only months before... there is apparently around 500 nest holes which is incredible.

We then moved to the northern part of the site to start work, and while working there were plenty of Warblers to be heard. This has been the case every week recently, as there is good habitat surrounding the new reedbeds. There were lots of whitethroat singing from the scrub, and in the woodlands that surround the reeds there were the sounds of willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap all day. New for me here though were the many Reed Warblers which could be heard singing away from the patch of dry reedbed, as well as a Grasshopper Warbler which had been reeling intermittently throughout the day. I also heard my first Turtle Dove of the year on two occasions...

Not many birds were noted passing over, though sometimes a lot do, but the highlight of the day was a Yellow Wagtail that flew overhead and landed a few metres from where we were working. It soon clocked us and flew off towards the arable land to the east.

I don't normally see too much when i'm out with the trust - but today was really exceptional - 2 year ticks (Dunlin and Turtle dove) and a brilliant host of other birds!