Thursday 14 May 2020

Thursday 14th May

Exceptionally cold last night, coastal temperatures in Devon dipped <5C and the coldest May in 40 years was experienced in N Ireland where overnight temperatures dropped < -6C!  In a light chilly north-easterly, the lunchtime high tide was about as underwhelming as a neap tide can be here (2.6 m at Exmouth Docks), but a mix of waterbirds still arrived with counts of 177 Oystercatcher, 41 Sanderling, 36 Whimbrel, 15 Dunlin, including yesterday's assumed 'arctica' race individual; also ten Shelduck, four Bar-tailed Godwit, three Curlew, just three Great Black-backed Gull, two Ringed Plover, two Little Egret and a Knot.

A Cuckoo, a new species for the year, ate caterpillars on Warren Point. This raised the site year-list to 142, the lowest tally by this date in all but one of the past 21 years.  Offshore, 13 Sandwich Tern, ten Gannet, a late flock of four Common Gull flew by,  and just three Shag. A trickle of 21 Swallow passed plus a Sand Martin.  

Of the two pairs of Long-tailed Tit on site, the pair nesting in the Entrance Bushes fledged seven young today.  Another species present on site included a male Sparrowhawk, one of the regular Raven, one of the breeding pair of Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Collared Dove and a pair of Bullfinch

The first Moorhen chick was spotted on the Main Pond, where two pairs of Little Grebe remain, but with only one surviving chick between them. 

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