Cold, overcast, drizzle, NE 2 - Following a week of near unbroken winter sunshine this morning dawned gloomy from the off and didn`t get much above half-light all day. However, a circular birding route today yielded many more birds than last Friday, mainly due to the ground being unfrozen. Starting at Lade where five Goldeneyes were the pit highlights, plus five Black-tailed Godwits and 20 Knots on the bay. At Dungeness hundreds of Red-throated Divers, Gannets, Kittiwakes and auks streamed to and fro around the point, while the Patch held a couple of hundred gulls including five Meds and ten Kittiwakes. On the bird reserve the lakes were packed out with common wildfowl with at least 12 Goldeneyes on ARC and Burrowes and a flyover Bittern at the former site. The fields at Boulderwall were also full of Lapwings, Golden Plovers, Curlews, feral geese, Starlings and corvids along with several Great White and Little Egrets, Grey Herons and two Glossy Ibis over. Sifting through the ducks, try as I might, I could find no sign of a Smew - am I going to go through the winter for the first time since moving down here 17 years ago without seeing one...
Elsewhere across the Marsh these past few days, including the back of Scotney, there has been very little to report apart from the wild swans on Walland Marsh and a Short-eared Owl on the Army Ranges (per MC).
No comments:
Post a Comment