Wednesday 5 October 2022

Nothing new, but some bits of interest

The very strong winds didn't arrive till after dark this evening. Even so it was strong enough southeasterly to drive the "light rain" horizontal along the sea wall. Rain for most of the day. With only the occasional gaps later in the afternoon.

Just my stuff again so far (MD)
South Shore low water
It was raining when I started and I was only going to check the foreshore, but it eased for a while so I checked the sea wall too.
Curlew in front of foreshore 
Rock Pipit 2  - one at both ends of the foreshore 
Skylark 1 at the Red Nab end of foreshore. The Rock Pipit here wasn't happy! 
The above clip was during a brief dry spell, but it soon started raining again. So the Skylark flew onto the beach to shelter behind a clump of cord grass, don't suppose there are many shots of a Skylark on the beach. The Rock Pipit still wasn't happy.

It rained all along the sea wall and the only thing of interest was a negative, there were no Mediterranean gulls feeding on the beach near the wooden jetty.

Unbelievably, and slightly annoyingly, by the time I'd got back to my car the sun came out! So I called in at Middleton on my way home to check the two main ponds:
Main Pond
Mute Swan - the full complement of 2 adult and 7 cygnets back
Mallard 7
Female and male Mallard looking fine in breeding plumage 
Moorhen 2
Grey Heron 1
Little grebe 1 fishing

It catches a small Roach or Rudd (probably the latter), but has to dive again before it can swallow it. The Black-Headed gulls were closing in. It will not be able to swallow it underwater, but must have resurfaced in the reed margins as I didn't see it again. I've put two clips together, first the grebe with fish followed by the gulls arriving a couple of seconds after it dived.


No swimming pond 
No Gadwall was a surprise 
Moorhen 2
Kingfisher 1  - I didn't see it on the pond, but one flew south as I was leaving and presumably it had come from this pond.

Hopefully better fare tomorrow