Thanks to Richard for helping with WeBS today.
The NT section of the corse was feeling the full brunt of the wind today with waves on the water around the hide. This meant most wildlife was hunkered down and seeking shelter. The bulk of the count therefore occurred on the upper part of the corse.
Due to the topography and hedge line, which provided a bit of shelter from wind, the ‘snipe’ field lifted a lot more birds than usual with count of 202. With a few other random birds lifted here and there, made a total count of 205. (For WeBS counts, last time numbers exceeded this at Corse, were the winter of 2017-18 and in Nov/ Dec 2018).
4 Curlew were seen on the upper corse and two more were towards starmans making 6 for the count, shame that flock of 39 I saw recently were not about today!
The flocks of Golden Plover (260) and Lapwing (500) were reasonable.
A good count on the gulls with 480 Black Headed, 40 Herring, 18 Lesser Black Back and 3 Common gull on the upper corse, with 3 Great Black Back and 4 more Herring adding to the count down towards Freshwater West end of the survey area.
We had total of 78 Mallard, 32 Teal, 10 Shoveller, 6 Pintail and 2 Little Grebe. Though I have seen a handful of Wigeon and 2 Moorhen near the hide recently these alluded us today. Sadly, no sign of any Heron or Egret today.
A Kestrel and Buzzard were the only Birds of Prey today.
Was nice to see a pair of Chough having a good feed towards Starmans.