Tuesday, 27 February 2018

28th of February: The Beast from the East

Cor blast! It's a bit bleak in Blakeney this week...

TUE 27th: Icicles on the Lifeboat House (Ajay Tegala)

TUE 27th: Snow on the shingle ridge (Ajay Tegala)

WED 28th (07:45): Friary Hills and Blakeney Freshes now white (Ajay Tegala)

WED 28th (10:30): Blakeney Quay (Ajay Tegala)

WED 28th (14:00): Blakeney Freshes (Barrie Slegg)

Friday, 23 February 2018

23rd of February: Blakeney Freshes Cam

We wanted to share with you some of the wildlife captured by one of our trail cameras located on the Friary Hills edge of the Blakeney freshwater grazing marshes...

Muntjac - plenty of these around, plus an occasional Chinese Water Deer

Moorhen - soon to be nesting on the Freshes

Pheasant - plenty of these around, including this particularly bold male

And... best 'til last... a BADGER! - these are not a common sight on the Freshes, so we were delighted to find our trail camera had captured evidence of one on site.



In other news, we have just heard back from RSPCA East Winch regarding a year-old Grey Seal cow we spotted on Blakeney Point recently. She had an orange flipper tag, indicating she had been released by the RSPCA:
 Tail flipper showing orange tag (Ajay Tegala)


“Tusker
In from Cley (15.2kg) on the 9th of February 2017 and released at Sutton Bridge(45kg) on 15th September 2017.”

We were pleased to report that, although she was very sick when she arrived at East Winch with lungworm and pneumonia, she is currently very much alive and well. Another wildlife success story thanks to the great work of the RSPCA.

Finally, on the theme of seals, we were happy to see pup number 2,700 on Valentines Day; aged five weeks and still on the Point....
Pup #2700 aged five weeks (Ajay Tegala)

- Ajay, Ranger

Thursday, 1 February 2018

1st of February: a Seal on the Old Season

Today, whilst carrying out a wetland bird count on Blakeney Point, we checked up on the last Grey Seal pup of the season (number 2700). The pup is today 22 days old and we are pleased to report that it has been successfully weaned...

The last weaned pup (Ajay Tegala)


It will now probably be almost nine months before we next blog about Grey Seal pups!

This week the rangers have been busy managing the reedbed on Blakeney Freshes as well as tidying up the car park and boat park at Morston Quay.