OK so summer seems to ‘on hold’ at the moment but it hasn’t stopped several visitors from visiting the seals and Blakeney Point, The good old British public have braved heavy rain, thunder, lightning, the odd hail storm, wind and yes some SUN!

Although not as many visitors as there would have been if sunny, the trips have been very enjoyable (apart from a bit damp at times!) the Terns are great to watch feeding their young with some lovely sized whitebait and sand eels, and teaching them to fly and feed themselves can be very amusing as they flop into the water and pick up a bit of seaweed mistaking it for a fish!

The seals have been basking right on the end of the Point at the moment which is great as we can get Really close, still no more common seal pups as yet (very soon now!)

HOW do they count the Terns? we are often asked this so i spoke to the wardens on the point and they told me how!

Believe it or not they use ‘Macaroni Pasta’ (un-cooked) ‘YES Macaroni!’ They choose a peak time when all the terns are nesting, several wardens then armed with a bag of Macaroni (pre-counted) walk in a line through the nesting ground (like a police search!) throwing a piece of macaroni near each nest, once through the area they go back to base count how many macaroni left , take this away from the starting total and hey presto this gives the exact amount of nests! this is then doubled (as two birds to a nest!) and this then gives a very accurate bird count! I thought this very simple and very cleaver. It is also very important as to compare with other years to see if any big changes in numbers of  breeding birds!

Lets hope the sun shines a bit more this week, but rain or shine we still go, all trip times are on the website, hope to see you!