Sunday, 10 December 2023

It never really got light!

Last night's strong westerlies quickly died down, there was only a gentle SE wind at 08:00. It increased slightly during the day and shifted more to SW. Very low cloud all day, producing rain for much of it.

South Shore (MD)
I had a walk along the sea wall at "first light"! You couldn't really call it "light"
Pale-bellied Brent goose 17. It was 08:30 when I reached Red Nab, "sunrise" was supposed to be 08:20. I didn't expect the sun, but I did expect to be able to see! These are some of the Brent at 08:30:

It was a bit less dark on the return at 09:30, even so I had to increase exposure to make it this "bright". There are thirteen Brent in this clip, the other four were feeding separately.

Shelduck 22
Wigeon c150

Cormorants on the wooden jetty. This is 09:00 and the green navigation lights are still on.
Lapwing 87 on saltmarsh 
Rock Pipit 1 near the lighthouse 

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)
Just a quick passing check of the main pond
Mute Swan just the two adults, no sign of the immature birds, and the female was skulking in the reeds. 
Coot 5
Moorhen 4
Mallard 6
Tufted Duck 1 male
The Tufted Duck was minding its own business and having a preen

But this Coot wasn't in a tolerant mood


Imperial Rd (MD)
Buzzard 2
This pale bird was in the large trees half way along the road. Looking over to the second bird

A darker bird was alternating between being on this grass and sat on the same fence as yesterday.
It was raining at this time, and I finally realised what it was doing. It was scanning the grass from the fence and dropping down to catch whatever showed, presumably in this case, an earthworm. Not a great clip and it's windscreen wipers again I'm afraid. But it does show the technique. 



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