 |
Not a lot of open water today! |
Richard kindly counted the upper corse for me today while I covered the bottom section which is usually Robs domain.
Richard got a healthy number of lapwing of 1110 (I gained a stray one so 1111 being the final count).
Richard also had 4 little egret, 37 Golden Plover, a Shelduck and 2 Dunlin on the upper section.
The 8 Whooper Swans were just up from the hide as I was walking up but flew off at 9:55 looking to be heading to the upper corse. At least they were there for the International Swan Census (ISC) which is happening this weekend.
The two Mute Swans were on the slacks which are full of water at the moment and moved off up towards the upper corse about 9:44.
The highlight of the day though happened early on. There were 8 Curlew in the field just beyond the car park at Freshwater West, one of which was colour ringed with yellow ring on left Tibia and a white flag with black writing P23 on the right Tibia. Email has gone off to the ringing program but looking back at the Blog this bird was highlighted by Richard in December 2024 after Steve had showed him a picture he had taken. So already know this bird is from a Netherlands project.
|
Curlew P23 |
Had what felt like a low count across the 'snipe field' today of just 31 with a few other random ones here and there bringing total to 36.
140 Teal lifted at one point but quickly disappeared again into the reeds. A lowly count of 12 for the Mallard. Shoveller totalled 43.
2 adult Female Marsh Harriers intermittently appeared at distance on the far side of the corse, at one point one of them was trying to get a Buzzard to move on from a willow bush by diving at it!