Mild, showery, light airs - We spent the morning walking the Dengemarsh circuit, mostly in light rain, where the farmland was saturated with large acreages flooded after the recent heavy rain. There were hundreds of feral geese and 60 Mute Swans on the stubble fields, plus hundreds more Woodpigeons, Black-headed Gulls and black crows where sheep, foraging on turnips, had turned the fields into a sea of mud. The soggy sheep looked a sorry old sight within the confines of the electric fencing with no way of getting to drier land. Another sheep fold near the corral attracted a large flock of Pied Wagtails numbering at least 150 birds, while a weedy field at the back of Hookers held around 80 Corn and 30 Reed Buntings. A few singing Skylarks and Cetti`s Warblers were also noted, along with a Great White Egret, two Common Buzzards, 100 Wigeons and 20 Shelducks across the Boulderwall fields. The section through the bird reserve produced flight views of Bearded Tits and a flyover Common Snipe at Hookers, two Marsh Harriers and several hundred Teal, Shoveler and Wigeon on the flooded hayfields.
Elsewhere today the wintering Black-throated and Great Northern Divers were on Burrowes with another Great Northern on ARC, while the Bewick`s Swans were still, for the time being, present on Walland Marsh to the south of Brookland.
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