Thanks to the scouts (and helpers) who helped build our reed screens around the bird feeding area last week.

After an absence of about 3 years we now have a Barn Owl hunting over the bog again. I have seen it now for several nights over the last week, a beautiful bird.

Our resident flock of Linnet were in good voice this week.

I gave a talk yesterday to the local U3A group at Hepscott village hall. I talked about the story of Clarks Bog, a bit of local history, a bit of geology, and a run down of what we have done so far, ending with our plans for the future.

It seemed to go down well, hopefully they found it interesting.

Here’s a little view of the inside of our new hide, insulated with padded seats, and even carpet. What more could a twitcher need?

One of my regulars, hunting on the reserve, this male Kestrel is a beauty.

This fine beast has just depleted our Bank Vole population by one!

This female Sparrow hawk has been terrorising my bird feeding area over the last few days. Today she took down a young female Blackbird right in front of our hide, good meal for the Sparrow hawk, not so good for the Blackbird!

Usually seen at night on my trail cameras today our local fox came to see me just after lunch and sat by the pond for 10 minutes.

Many thanks to David Noble-Rollin for securing a grant from the Dickinson fund enabling us to obtain 50 bird boxes (25 for this year, see pic, and 25 boxes for next year). This fund is managed by the Natural History Society of Northumbria.

I am told we will be supplied with a squad of students to put these bird box kits together, which will save me a bit of time. Before this happens we will survey the site to determine the best sites for these boxes. The long skinny boxes you can see are for Willow Tits which are on the ‘red list’ of birds at risk, we have a healthy little colony to it would be great if we can encourage a few more. Also one of the key reasons for being successful in the grant application was the fact we were able to show a positive improvement in the tree sparrow population ( a bird also ‘at risk’). Hopefully the increased number of safe homes will improve this even further.