Frampton Marsh

A late August Bank Holiday weekend brings an opportunity to explore a reserve we've not visited before on the East coast.

This post covers events of Aug 30th 2021.

A speedy recce

We arrive at Frampton slightly later than planned and then become later still, thanks to some of our party urgently needing a snack to keep them sensible, and one briefly underdeployed in the membership card department.

With these issues addressed we hop out for a quick walk around the main lake and scrapes behind the visitor centre. Our first quarry is, predictably, sleeping on a mud island at the centre of the lake - a party of twenty or so Spoonbill. There's an additional Common Sandpiper or two kicking about a bit closer to us. Nice.

What else can we find? The sightings board suggests Little Stint, Hobby, Curlew Sandpiper and Black Tern are all possibilities nearby. A walk out to the sea wall later might find us a Short-eared Owl or a Merlin.

Our route takes us to the 360 hide, where we find plenty of waders - Ruff, Bar-tailed Godwit, a few Common Snipe and an isolated Golden Plover, still looking reasonably handsome. We try to find Little Stint, but the best candidates are some distance away - we'll perhaps catch up with them from the East Hide later. On exiting the hide we spot a collection of Avocets hiding on one of the closer watery areas - they're almost completely obscured by foliage between us and them though!

We move briefly on to the Reedbed hide which offers a different Spoonbill view, with the addition of more Godwits, and a little posse of Greenshank looking aloof. This time of year is seemingly excellent for Greenshank - it seems to be easier to catch them on the way down than on the way up; I can't remember the last time we found one in the Spring. No, wait, I can .

We get almost to the end of this path before we run out of time - we need to head back to the car to rescue our lunch before it gets driven away. Just as we're deciding though, we spot several keen-looking birders transfixed in the distance. Following their binoculars, we find a tern of some sort fishing in a channel off to our right, and with a bit of squinting it's clear to us this is the sightings' board's Black Tern. Victorious, we start on our return to the car, but on the way we have further joy - a Little Stint is associating itself closely enough with some Dunlins that we can pick it out.

A post-prandial tour

After a proper meal the group proceeds at a more leisurely pace. Potentially verging on dawdling. We try walking around the lake behind the visitor centre clockwise this time - discovering more Godwits and another Common Sandpiper (probably) as we go. At the back of that lake, there's a flock of a hundred or so Goldfinches in a bush. Just after this we get our best view of the Spoonbill flock.

We're frequently distracted by raptor movement over The Haven - its just far enough away to make each bird interesting, which is frustrating, because every single one of them eventually slows up and hovers into Kestreldom. We stop looking after a while and concentrate on matters closer to hand. After circuiting three sides of the lake, we're now back to where the Black Tern was earlier.

Despite a brief distraction by some very hungry Ruff, we can't fail to miss the single Black Tern continuing to fish on this lake. We take in excellent views on our way around to the East hide, keen to see if the little waders we could see near it earlier were of interest.

Here we find a further Little Stint, but are unable to filch out a Curlew Sandpiper from the Dunlins. Through a bit of reading I discover this is harder than I thought - I've only ever found them in July at Oare, when the adults return in plumage that is much easier to identify them in. The birds here now will be juveniles and, according to the internet, our best hopes of distinguishing them are considerably more subtle.

We've interrogated just about every bird we can see from the East hide when suddenly they're all up in the air - a raptor must be inbound! We manage to get a bead on it as it rockets through from left to right - a young Peregrine Falcon, we think. Its arrival is our advent - we have an appointment with the sea wall.

Despite our enthusiasm for seeing one, no Short-eared Owl makes an appearance . We continue to find an abundance of Kestrels, and, in the channel to our right, a nice Ringed Plover or two. Further round, a few of the Spoonbills fly over us. And then, to trump them, a B-17 Flying Fortress flies over as well. OK then. Are parts of Lincolnshire still at war, we wonder?

We eventually reach a gate that signifies the end of this part of the circuit . We still have half an hour or so to use, so more deliberate scanning for owl occurs. It is fruitless. In a nearby field, cattle are rounded up, and some egrets are emitted from the area where the cows were. We are too slow to get them in the scope. A brief foray North to where they landed doesn't find them either. Little Egrets they will stay. The foray does, however, put us on to a little flock of Yellow Wagtails poking about in the marshy stuff on the seaward side of the wall.

Eventually though, our time comes, and we must return to the car. Only a last minute close up of Common Snipe delays us, and then we are off.

Thoughts

What a place. Full of birds, and full of action. Each time we thought we'd run out of things to look at, a further surprise was in store. We'll be back!