Knot, as fickle as the weather!

Showers on and off all day. A light SW wind.

Middleton Nature Reserve - main pond (Malcolm)

1 female Mute Swan still with 6 cygnets 

Mallard 25

Gadwall 6

Tufted Duck 12

Coot 17

Moorhen 4

Moorhen and Coot 

Imperial Rd (Malcolm)

Buzzard 1 east just after a shower stopped

Little Egret 1 west also just after the shower

Green Sandpiper flew from one obscured area of wetland to another equally obscured area.

Common Snipe 2

No sign of the Stonechat 

Carrion Crow eating carrion, likely roadkill from the nearby bypass 

One of three Blackbirds feeding on Hawthorn berries

South shore (Malcolm)

Just a quick check of Red Nab on the rising tide.

Pale-Bellied Brent Geese at least 29

The gutweed is quite close cropped, but it continues to grow, albeit slowly,
 in this mild weather

The rising tide moves them off the rocks

Slightly unusually, three small groups flew off leaving the others behind

The remainder followed shortly afterwards 

Wigeon 200, plus it is likely that some had already left for the saltmarsh.

Just a few of the Wigeon

Rock Pipit 1

Kingfisher 1 flying around 

Kingfisher 

Heliport and Near Naze (Howard)

Zero knot on heliport, 

c140 snipe flushed from the longer vegetation close to the roadside.

There was some difficulty logging on to the blog this evening. If a post doesn't appear one day, it will likely be because of a technical problem that hopefully will be resolved.