When the timing is right, these long summer days allow both high tides to be covered and observations were made today over a 15 hour period of daylight. Three 'red-head' Goosander fished in the shallows and were present all day from The Bight to Railway Saltmarsh. This the three summer sighting here this year fits a pattern of post-breeding dispersal that has emerged since July 2010 and may relate to breeding success on the River Exe.
Selected waterbird counts within the recording area's part of the estuary include 283 Oystercatcher, a count boosted by returning birds, 171 Curlew, 61 Redshank, eight Great Black-backed Gull, six Bar-tailed Godwit, six Whimbrel, six Mute Swan, four Dunlin, four Common Tern (also offshore), four Little Egret, three Sandwich Tern, and the pair of Canada Goose still with their three goslings; also two Greenshank, two Lesser Black-backed Gull, an adult Black-tailed Godwit, a Grey Heron, a Common Sandpiper, and the resident Slavonian Grebe.
Among the 400 Black-headed Gull (one German-ringed) were 80+ Mediterranean Gull (of the 72 aged, these were 3 juv, 5 fs, 25 ss and 39 adult) and a number of these were ringed (colour-ringed and some only metal-ringed) which were from Belgium (two-four birds), Germany and a green-ringed Dutch bird ringed in 2010. A brief Little Tern in The Bight sported a green colour-ring from the colony at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow where it was ringed in 2014, the first year of that scheme.
Brief spells of sea-watching revealed 59 Common Scoter; a distant Pomarine Skua chased gulls around, and the immature Great Northern Diver floating off Warren Point.
Three juvenile Rock Pipit foraged along Warren Neck and a male Reed Bunting returned to sing at Golf Course Pond. Just single figures of Swallow and Swift passed overhead.
No comments:
Post a Comment