Tuesday 19 October 2021

(not) LANDGUARD - 17th October

 A good-few-hours at Bawdsey Quay in the morning was dwindling away into another migrant-less autumn 2021 session until I flushed a Richard’s Pipit off the river wall, just north of the road, opposite the picnic site entrance; it flew around calling and showing well in flight before landing again out of sight, flew around again several times before the first twitchers arrived and apparently to all-comers until mid-afternoon.   

The bushes and trees prior to this were devoid of migrants (an unsurprising state of affairs this autumn!) but birds did include 2 Merlin – one which flew south along the beach and over the river and another perched on the saltmarsh, 190 Dunlin along the river just prior to getting pushed off by the tide, 596 Cormorants cutting across from roosting at Loompit and heading out to sea, a Tawny Owl along the road at dawn, a single Chiffchaff, a Grey Wagtail, a Brambling and 4 Redpolls.   

Totals on a dropping tide at Melton then included 135 Wigeon, 92 Teal, 14 Avocets, 4 Grey Plover, 29 Ringed Plover, 35 Curlew, 275 Black-tailed Godwits, 3 Turnstone and 3 Greenshank.






Richard's Pipit (in the last picture showing comparison in shape and size with Meadow Pipits)



Black-tailed Godwit



Curlew




Teal


Greenshank


No comments:

Post a Comment