Better than expected!

When I looked out at 22:00 last night it was pouring down and everywhere was wet. An hour later, the snow was so hard that it blanketed everything. It was blowing hard from the north and the snow continued into the early hours. I certainly didn't expect today to turn out to be as pleasant as it did!

By morning the snow still lay deep on vegetation, but quickly cleared from roads and hard paths. The north wind continued but much lighter and moved to the NW in the afternoon. Sunshine, pretty much all day. It was still cold but a nice day for walking, as long as you wrapped up.

Pete and Howard managed to read a number of colour ringed Knot on the Heliport and Near Naze high tide roost. These are a couple of Howards shots.

A ringing report in the upcoming Annual Report summarises all
ringing including colour ringed Knot recoveries 

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

A nice stroll around in the morning sunshine.

Wildfowl pretty much unchanged.

The main pond Coots had clearly decided that threats alone were not enough to defend territory. They were obviously "squaring up". The subsequent battle looks fierce, but was over quickly. 

Both sides seem to claim victory, I suspect it was more like a draw, either way hostilities ceased, at least for the time being.

The Black-Headed Gulls were resting on the main pond edge, there are first winter and adult birds in various degrees of moulting to summer plumage.

Snipe sp 1 - what looked and behaved like a Jack Snipe, but it took flight while I was over 5m away. Jack Snipe often wait till you are almost on top of them before they take flight. But this was on snow covered ground, perhaps they only trust their camouflage when on appropriate terrain.

One advantage of walking on the snow (although it was melting quickly by this time) is that you can see what there has been. These are classic Pheasant tracks, not just the footprints, but the impression of the tail dragging behind.

Pheasant tracks

Imperial Rd (MD)

Just a quick stop off on the way past.

Buzzard 2 - this clip, shows one flying towards the bypass 

This is a still from the above clip, the second Buzzard is circled.
It is on the fence behind the tree, it followed the other a little later.

Heysham skear (MD)

I had a walk late afternoon, still three hours to low water, but the inner skear was exposed. This clip, shows gulls amassing to land on a newly emerging sand bar. But it's really just to show how lovely the South Lakes looked.

Eider 10

Red-breasted Merganser 2

Oystercatcher c2,000

Knot c600

Turnstone c150

Redshank 30

Dunlin 80

This small patch of broken mussels was already full of Oystercatcher and Knot (plus at least 1 Dunlin), before another flock of Knot arrived.

These are mainly Turnstone and Redshank 

Of all this afternoon's birds, this is the only one I saw that was ringed.
Dunlin with metal ring - no chance of reading of course. It is just to show that
spotting and reading ringed birds, as Howard and Pete did this morning, is no mean feat.