Wednesday 5 August 2020

Antisocial Rock Pipits

The strong overnight southerly winds quickly eased. Heavy and prolonged showers.

Again, just my check of the south shore, so far (MD)
11:15 Two hours before high water
Mediterranean gull - just one juvenile feeding on No.2 outflow. No sign of any on Red Nab.
Common Tern 1 adult on No1 outflow.

Rock pipits
They appeared to be everywhere today, but what was happening was that two birds must have moved from their breeding area and were not being tolerated in the regular bird's territories. First there were three squabbling between the outflows, two (presumably the intruders) moved towards Red Nab and the other returned towards the jetty area.
Unfortunately they were not greeted kindly at Red Nab, at one point there were five birds bickering.
This one was being driven....

.......up the wall.......

and round the bend!

The two were moved on to Ocean Edge foreshore, there were then three birds. The two eventually left for the east side of the saltmarsh, possibly where they came from.
So an absolute minimum of six birds involved, almost certainly seven.