Saturday 14 October 2023

Castlemartin Corse

A lot more water, and with it more birds. Just a few ducks - shoveler 5, mallard 7, greylag 1. A (probably juvenile female) ruff was keeping company with 6 lapwing on the upstream flooded meadows. Just 7 snipe, 2 grey heron and a little egret. A flock of 220 golden plover flew over the Corse.

Rob and Adam who walked in from the Fresh West end saw 2 marsh harriers, one almost certainly the 3CY-ish female that's been about recently, the other a seemingly all-dark juvenile male, going by Rob's photo of it perched in cover. Neither bird was showing by the time I arrived from covering the upstream flooded meadows. If so a rare morph, acc. to the Bird Guide, not sure I've seen one of those. 

Otherwise buzzard, kestrel, water rail, Cetti's... Best non-avian sighting a late male Aeshna mixta