On the walk over to the hides there were two vocal Fieldfares, a Mistle Thrush and plenty of zitting Song Thrushes. B Water had good numbers of duck with 2 drake Pochard, 5 Tufted Duck and 105 Shoveler being the highlights.
After a coffee I walked out to the beach and found a Coal Tit with the mobile tit flock. As a Snow Bunting had been reported yesterday flying from Hill Head towards Lepe I decided to walk out along the beach hoping it might have relocated to NO. Unfortunately, the only passerines I saw were half a dozen Skylark and a flyover Siskin. Oystercatchers and Turnstones accompanied me as I walked the length of the shingle spit.
Oystercatcher and Meadow Pipit
It was fairly quiet from the Sailing Club with a single Bar-tailed Godwit being the highlight amongst the feeding Dunlin, Grey Plover and Ringed Plover. I walked to the sluice to check out the scrape and counted 11 Avocet, the peak winter count so far.
A brief stop at the Reedy Ditch produced the highlight of the day, a lovely Short-eared Owl quartering over P Shore. It showed well at 3:10pm and then again at 3:35pm, even landing on a post briefly.
Short-eared Owl photos by Ian Williamson
Patch Birding 