Warm, dry and sunny, NE3 - Having been away in Dorset for the first half of the week it felt good to spend the morning with Ted on the local patch birding, not only Lade wetlands but also Kerton quarry, the adjacent desert, Mockmill sewer and the rough grassland towards the airfield. The highlight was a ringtail harrier (probably an adult female Hen) being mobbed by corvids behind the wall mirror and last seen heading towards Belgar farm where ploughing operations attracted hundreds more corvids, pigeons and gulls. It was a good morning for raptors with several Common Buzzards (including one with a rufous tail!) Marsh Harriers and Kestrels plus a Sparrowhawk. The willow scrub behind south lake was alive with warblers, mostly Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs along with good numbers of Lesser and Common Whitethroats, plus Reed and Sedge Warblers in Mockmill. The desert yielded half a dozen Wheatears, two Stonechats and a Whinchat and a pair of Ravens flew over `cronking` noisily. On the high tide the quarry roost attracted around 500 Oystercatchers, 100 large gulls and Sandwich Terns, several Curlews, Redshanks, Greenshanks and Common Sandpipers with a Whimbrel briefly on the desert. Lade south was packed out with diving ducks, Coots, Great Crested and Little Grebes, Shovelers, Teals, Gadwalls and a lone Shelduck, plus a Great White and ten Little Egrets, two more Common Sandpipers, two Green Sandpipers, my first two Kingfishers of autumn, several Yellow Wagtails over and pulses of hirundines through. North lake held 500 Black-headed and a few Mediterranean Gulls, plus the usual wildfowl, grebes and Grey Herons. On the walk back along the main track a Wheatear allowed a ridiculously close approach to about ten feet as it posed for the camera. A cracking morning`s birding.
Elsewhere across the peninsula today plenty more common passage warblers have been noted along with a few Spotted Flycatchers, plus a White-winged Black Tern and a Spotted Redshank on Burrowes this afternoon.
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