Richard and I went to Castlemartin Corse today for the November WeBS count.
The water remains high which leant itself to many birds in the upper section of the corse.
The gulls were hanging out in this upper section. We totalled 140 Herring Gull, 200 Black Headed Gull, 1 Common Gull and 1 Lesser Black Backed Gull.
There were 3 Black Tailed Godwit trying to blend in
and hide amongst a flock of Lapwing. Across the whole area we had 700 Lapwing.
A fair proportion of the wildfowl species were also in the upper section but across the whole area we totalled 94 Shoveller, 210 Teal, 320 Wigeon, 180 Mallard, 3 Pintail and 2 Goldeneye. Excuse the poor quality images of the Goldeneye and Pintail but loading for record sake!
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| One of the two Goldeneye |
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| One of the three Pintail |
We had a couple of small flocks of Snipe as well as the ones we lifted as we walked the route, totalling 51.
At the hide 2 Little Grebe were hiding along the edge of the reedbed, Water Rail were heard and 4 moorhen put in an appearance. The grey heron was at its usual spot on the far side of the open water (one of two seen today). A grey wagtail made a brief appearance just in front of the hide.
The 3 Marsh Harriers were showing well today from the hide. Here are a few images of them.
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| Adult female on ground with 1CY bird in flight |
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| Same 1CY bird with the other Marsh Harrier on ground |
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| 1CY bird with adult female below |
The highlight of the day though has to have been this encounter with a female
Kingfisher, one of the two individuals observed today.
In other news.... the starlings are ever present towards Starman’s sitting on the wires and flying around the Corse. A buzzard was seen on one of the fenceposts towards Starman’s. As usual several Cettis warblers were heard along the route and one Reed Bunting was heard from the hide along with seeing the resident wren. A flock of 14 stock doves were seen on our way back up the Corse.
P.S A robin kindly photobombed most of my images of the kingfisher!