As usual I've been somewhat tardy with this blog post and what was supposed to be an end of February update now has a component of early spring mixed in. After what has been a rather long and slow winter, it has been pleasing watching the sudden change in birding activity recently as early spring movement kicked in
Starting with wildfowl, it's been the usual suspects with the usual early spring build-up of Shelduck on the Meadow. The peak count was 9 birds at the start of February but since then numbers have been between 2 and 5. Pintail have been regular visitors with a peak count of about 30. The Barnacle Geese were conspicuous by their absense and haven't been seen much since the start of February.
Onto gulls and while the season is definitely drawing to a close it's been a fairly solid end of winter period with multiple Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls as well as several smart adult Mediterranean Gulls. Sadly yet another winter seems to have passed with no white-winged gulls at all in the county.
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| Caspian Gull courtesy of Thomas Miller |
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| Adult Mediterranean Gull courtesy of Thomas Miller |
As far as waders are concerned, after a very quiet winter at last things are starting to pick up. We've had a few singleton Black-tailed Godwits since the last update and the first Oystercatchers were back on the 13th February with numbers rising to a peak count of 7 in the last couple of weeks. There were no overwintering Redshank this year but as spring approaches we started to get some movement with up to 9 seen on the Meadow. Dunlin also started to make an appearance with up to 8 birds seens. Our first Curlew was seen on the 2nd of March and we got our first Little Ringed Plover on the 10th.
In terms of raptors, a pair of Peregrines have been hanging out regularly on the Meadow, harrassing the various birds present. We had yet another Marsh Harrier over the Meadow. This one was rather low and went over slowly.
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| The latest Marsh Harrier courtesy of Thomas Miller |
Apart from that there have been some good miscellaneous birds to report. Up to two Stonechat have been seen on and off throughout the period, usually in the scrub at the southern end of the Meadow. We had our first Sand Martins of the year for the patch and indeed the whole county on the 24th February. We also had yet another Yellowhammer on the patch on the 1st March. This one was actually seen in Burgess Field rather than just being a fly-over. We also had a fly-over Pipit a couple of days ago. It was probably a Rock Pipit though might just have been a Water Pipit. Finally a new un-ringed Siberian Chiffchaff was found on the 11th March.
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| The new Siberian Chiffchaff. The scruffiness is typical of this subspecies which starts to moult about now. Courtesy of Thomas Miller |
Looking ahead, unlikely last year when the floods were a bit too full to be attractive to waders, this years the habitat is looking really good. We can therefore expect plenty more wader action as we move towards the peak time of year for spring migrants.
