Sunday morning’s wet and grey…so begins
another birding day, enough paraphrasing and on with the news. I met with Pete
Solly at the entrance this morning, it was nice catching up, and we birded the
circuit in a similar yet different atmosphere. There was virtually no wind
except a wisp of a westerly flutter and high whitish grey clouds that
eventually became greyer and the wind ascending to a blustery west south west.
There were nine Shelducks from the Ramp along with yesterday’s pair of Pintail,
9 Tufted Duck, 4 Wigeon and only 1 drake Garganey, although Brendan later had
five there. A Bittern was booming to the west in the Marsh hide area and Marsh
Harriers, although slow to arise, eventually made their presence known with 6
birds noted. The Feast hide held very little except a drake Pochard and 3
Tufted Duck and enroute to Harrison’s a lone Water Rail called out. Harrison’s
Hide still a little under-achieving at the moment with just 8 Snipe, a couple
of Lapwings and a gathering of Teal of any note and the ‘White House’ pool was
missing yesterday’s Greenshank. The first 0f 6 Sedge Warblers was heard along
the path towards the Marsh hide and that in turn produced 7 Ruff, 1
Black-tailed Godwit, 4 Redshank, 2 Green Sandpipers and 12 Snipe amongst the procreating
Lapwings. Chiffchaffs a plenty throughout the tour but only 4 Blackcaps noted
while on the lake at Stodmarsh there were 2 Great-crested Grebes, 4 Pochards
and 25 Tufted Ducks. As we rounded the bend after the Lake Tower hide 1 then 3
followed by a further 10 Swallows plus 6 Sand Martins were hunting over the
sheltered bushes and as we passed Paddy’s Bench the bird of the day, and
possibly the year (so far), was spotted on the receding water line. A stonking
(lol) looking winter plumaged Grey Plover was there to greet us. A very scarce
and irregular visitor to the valley and not an easy one to connect with. Also
on the Water Meadows were 1 Greenshank, 2 Green Sandpipers, 2 Ruff and 9 Water
Pipits with at least three of the later in their nice pink summer attire.
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| Grey Plover |
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| Water Pipit |
Also
here were a couple of Pied Wagtails and a White Wagtail while a Little Egret
left the pool behind and disappeared over the fishing ponds out towards
Seaton. Two of the Canada Geese were
still on the Grazing Marsh and after Chiddy eventually joined me, after Pete
and Brendan left, we went back via the lake where there were now 17 Swallows
and 25 Sand Martins feeding over it and a couple of Bearded Tits pinged in the
adjacent reed bed.
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| Water Pipit |
Two Gulls of note were an adult Lesser Black-backed and a 1st
winter Common on the pool from the Ramp at Grove. Black-headed Gulls aside, not
many others Gulls stop on the pool but often many hundreds pass over. A look
around the Paddocks as we left saw us adding Redwing to the days tally
alongside 4 Song Thrushes, 9 Blackbirds and a Green Woodpecker.
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| Song Thrush |
A stop off at Collard's on the way out added only 2 Black-headed Gulls plus 63 Tufted Duck and 6 Goldeneye two of wich were drakes.