This morning I went down Castlemartin Corse with Richard and Rob to do our March WeBS Count.
Think we were all surprised by how much the water level has dropped. The outfall has been cleared at some point during this week which has resulted in significant drop of the water level. The disappointment of other visitors to the hide were clearly communicated!
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| Where has all the water gone! | |
The upper part of the corse gave us 8 Herring Gull, 1 Lesser Black Back Gull, 1 Great Black Back Gull and 4 Curlew.
We had 23 Snipe along our routes to the hide and on the way back Richard got a very brief glance of a woodcock.
The Whooper Swan is still present, now with 3 Mute Swans. A couple of Graylag geese did fly past as we were walking down from the upper section.
Around the hide the Marsh harrier (2CY) helped by lifting the teal so we did get a reasonable count of 100 for them. Otherwise, numbers felt low with 12 Shoveller, 4 Wigeon, 2 Moorhen, 1 Pintail and only 8 Mallard! We also had 3 Grey Heron and 5 Little Egret.
Thinking back not one Water Rail was heard by us today, though nice to hear 3 separate Cettis Warblers.
Raptor wise other than the 1 2CY Marsh Harrier, we had 2 Buzzard circling where expected at this time of year and a sparrowhawk circling around the field the snipe tend to be in.
Richard clocked two Raven on the upper section on our walk down and Rob had a further two while walking up from the lower section. Rob also heard a chough and saw Wheatear and Skylark.
I must take this opportunity to thank both Richard and Rob with all their help, guidance and experience helping me with the counts.
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| 2CY Marsh Harrier |