Tuesday 1 December 2020

Great White Egret day

The weak sunshine during most of the day was a welcome change. What breath of breeze there was was generally from the east.

Only my stuff so far hopefully more to come (MD)

South shore
Great White Egret - I don't suppose there were any more today than normal, it's just not often we get 3 sightings. Two flying north from the estuary area 10:20 and 10:40 were typical movement. One east at 11:15 not so obvious. 
Common Snipe 6
Redshank 20
Grey Plover 2
Dunlin - initially c300 feeding just out from the saltmarsh. These were joined briefly by a further 300 before being flushed by the tide. They picked up others and c1000 circled a while before heading towards Potts Corner.
These are some of the second wave of Dunlin landing
Reed Bunting 3

Middleton Nature Reserve - afternoon.
An hour stroll around revealed little more than I see in my regular 2 minute check of the "no swimming" pond. But it was very pleasant, till darkness descended (before lunch had settled!)
Main pond:
Mute - just the 3 + 1 juveniles 
Coot 2
Moorhen 4
Gadwall 3
Mallard 2
Cormorant 1
Grey Heron 1

No swimming pond (just west of the main pond):
Mute 1 adult
Coot 5
Moorhen 4
Gadwall 8
Tufted 2 male
Shoveller 2 male
Little Grebe 2

Tim Butler Pond:
Moorhen 8 - most in the horse field to the east
Gadwall 2
Mallard 2

Fence "pond" (the inverted commas as there is very little open water left between the reed mace):
Coot 1
Moorhen 1

Rest of reserve
Common Snipe 3
Cetti's warbler 1 singing central marsh
Grey wagtail 2

I have a couple of "nice" videos to share, but the video function of the blog seems to have stopped functioning. Hopefully it is a temporary problem.
I will post them anyway, but if they don't work don't be surprised.

This is one of the Grey Wagtail catching a worm



And this one of the Tufted diving, I really liked the background calls on this one - ah well!