Saturday, 30 November 2024

Quite a bit going on today

Another dry and largely sunny day. A light SE wind

We are back to spring tides now, although this set isn't particularly high. A reasonable sized flock of Knot roosted on the Near Naze rocks, and between Richard Du Feu and Howard Stockdale 16 colour coded birds from three schemes were read.

As typical, most of the legs are hidden for most of the time

South shore (Malcolm)
Just a short walk from the saltmarsh to Red Nab towards high water this morning.
No Linnet seen on or around the saltmarsh
Skylark 1 flew from Ocean Edge grass to the saltmarsh 
Pale-bellied Brent goose 13 (there were 19 in the SE skear corner this evening)
Shelduck 9
Wigeon 200+
Wigeon

These are just below the sea wall

These Turnstones were turning impressive sized stones!

Chaffinch and Goldfinch collecting grit from the Nature Park track

Middleton Nature Reserve (Malcolm)
Just a quick check of the two main ponds. The "no swimming" pond is a metre above its normal level, and the only wildfowl seen/heard were a couple of Moorhens.
Main pond
Mute Swan pair plus immature 
Coot only 3 seen
Moorhen 3
Mallard 13
Gadwall 15
Tufted Duck 2
Teal 3
Teal

Tufted Duck

Cetti's warbler 1 calling

Imperial Rd (Malcolm)
Just a quick stop off on my way home
Buzzard 1 - preening in its "favourite" tree.

Kestrel 2
This one was either asleep or feeling unwell, it didn't move at
all while I was there

This one was hunting, but looks terribly thin

Redwing 1
Redwing

Heysham skear (Malcolm)
I wasn't going to go down as the tide was late and the light was already fading, but I couldn't resist a quick look.
Peregrine Falcon at least 1 attacking the Knot
I managed to read a couple of flagged Knot (just), and read a ringed Oystercatcher, details awaited.


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