North shore
Pale-bellied Brent goose 45 - David Kaye
I checked the skear on the ebbing tide this afternoon (Malcolm)
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| Some of the Brent were resting on the skear. The lower one on the right is squatting not stood as the others. Possibly the bird with the missing foot? |
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| A Peregrine attack lifted everything, at least all the Brent managed to take off together |
Eider 30
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| Female Eider |
Great Crested Grebe 1
Oystercatcher 1,500
Curlew 40
Redshank 450 most were shrimping
Knot 2700 including three new flagged birds for this winter.
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| This Knot was ringed in Inverness Scotland in 2023 |
Turnstone 40
Dunlin 30
Ringed Plover 2
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| Knot, Redshank and Curlew feeding. Note the Curlew, many text books and information plaques along the promenade tell you that Curlew use their long bills to probe deep into the mud. And of course they have that option. But more often than not they use it to probe horizontally under rocks etc. |
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| Today's conditions were perfect for the waders. The west wind brought small shrimps into the shallows all around the skear. Plus we are moving back to spring tides now and areas of skear not exposed for a week are available again. These are Knot flying out to newly exposed strips of skear. |
A late afternoon check failed to locate the Barn Owl. But this male Stonechat was near the turning circle on the road to the water treatment plant.
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| Stonechat |
