A lack-lustre morning suddenly got a lot more interesting at about 9.20am when I noticed a flock of 23 Snipe had been flushed from the reedbed on no.4 lagoon. The culprit turned out to be a juvenile Hen Harrier which quartered the reedbed for about 15 minutes before disappearing. To both our surprise, it then suddenly appeared from behind bushes about 20 feet away from me before flying off north towards no.3 lagoon.
Several flocks of Golden Plover dropped into the
lagoon during the morning totalling 166 birds that merged with 202 Lapwings.
Ducks included 30 Shoveler, 5 Gadwall, 3 Pintail, 1 Pochard and 1 Wigeon.
Very few winter thrushes present at first, but birds then began
to start moving mid-morning with 800+ Fieldfare and 300 Redwing
all coming up from Combs Dale and moving west over the north end of no.4
lagoon.
Other birds of note were a Brambling by the north gate
and a squealing Water Rail that showed briefly at the north end of no.4
lagoon.
In the afternoon, Andy was only able to stay for part of the
Starling roost and estimated around 40,000 birds came in. He also counted
1900 Fieldfares also coming up from Combs Dale.
The evening gull roost consisted of c800 Lesser Black-backed
Gulls, with 5 Herring Gulls and a Yellow-legged Gull.
No comments:
Post a Comment