Category: December 2020

On the drive down W Lane a noisy Greenshank called and flew up from the Reedy Ditch. There were more than 20 winter thrushes in the area of the hides with at least 15 Fieldfare and 5 Redwing. From the beach a drake Eider headed west half way out and a single Great Crested Grebe dived close in shore.

I met Dad at the Sailing Club. The nine Spoonbill were roosting on Inchmery and the 11 Avocet were again on the scrape opposite DL’O. Later the Spoonbill flew further east before landing near the mouth of the river where they began to feed. The wheeling flocks of Dunlin, Ringed Plover and Grey Plover contained a smaller number of Knot, at this distance they were little more than smaller ‘Grey Plover’ without black armpits. Later I managed to pick out around 15 Knot from the long line of waders feeding along the shoreline. A distant female Red-breasted Merganser dived in the mouth of the river. It may be the same female I have now seen on three occasions in this exact spot.

Curlew and Peregrine photos by Ian Williamson

A walk around the gorse bushes produced my first Dartford Warbler for a fortnight. Soon afterwards I heard a second bird calling and checking photos later it was evident that one bird had a ring on the right leg and the other on the left leg (left handed ringer). There is also at least one other non-ringed bird. I spoke to Graham Giddens and he confirmed that he ringed 2 Dartford Warblers on November 26^th, the first birds he had seen or ringed since the Beast from the East. Both birds were first winters and although young birds can be difficult to sex in their first autumns, from the wing lengths it seems likely they were male and female.

This suggests that there are at least five Dartford Warblers in this small area. Graham’s two birds with rings on their right legs, a bird which had a ring on its right leg before Graham ringed his, the bird with a ring on its left leg and a non-ringed bird which was seen after Graham ringed his birds. Hopefully if we don’t get some adverse weather we may have breeding Dartford Warblers again in 2021.

Dartford Warbler and Linnets

It also occurred to me that I haven’t seen or heard a Spotted Redshank for a month and a Merlin for six weeks, perhaps they’ve moved elsewhere to winter.

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

A cold start and there were Fieldfares calling as soon as I got out of the car. I found a group of 15 birds halfway along the walking trail but they were pretty skittish and were soon gone, ‘shacking’ as they went. Fieldfare seem to be hugely outnumbering Redwing this winter. There was very little activity on the sea. The familiar flock of 11 Turnstones were picking through the high tide line and three Oystercatchers were stood at the water’s edge.

There were good numbers of duck on B Water with eight Tufted Duck newly arrived, 60 Shoveler, 40 Gadwall and six Pintail. On the scrape from DL’O 18 Shelduck was the highest count I’ve had. I got back to the car to find an obliging Fieldfare calling in the bushes around the shore hide.

On the drive out to the point I noticed a large flock of waders, obviously displaced by high tide, they had settled on the shingle bank opposite the cottages. They were mainly Grey Plover and Dunlin, perhaps 80 of each and there were at least 5 Knot amongst them.

I spent a few hours watching from the sailing club house. Highlight of the day was a very close juvenile Red-throated Diver which showed well 100 yards out before drifting further up the river.

A large group of 130 Greylag were gathered along the northern shoreline and five previously hidden Spoonbill took off from the same area. A family of two adult and five juvenile Brent Geese were stood in front of the sailing club. It’s amazing to think that this family has stayed together all the way from northern Russia.

The female Red-breasted Merganser which has been fishing in the mouth of the river was still present and a couple of Sandwich Terns were diving regularly before returning to rest on several buoys. Six Skylarks were creeping in the short grass at the edge of the marsh and 14 Linnets were also coming down to the ground to look for seeds. Several obliging Rock Pipits showed off nicely.