TURN THE TAP OFF

How grumpy can a chick look? On a day like today - very! I nearly stood on this motionless bundle of feathers in my front garden at the park on a very sodden bank holiday Monday 28th. This very young great tit chick had only just flown the nest with its fellow siblings a few minutes earlier, as it had only managed to get about 7 metres away. I could hear its young brothers and sisters calling from the bush close-by.
What a miserable introduction to the big, wild and very wet outside. It had rained almost continuously over the weekend, finally dumping around 3 inches of rain here at East Mersea.

The picture below shows the delightful "bijou-res" where the tits successfully raised a family this week. Down inside the hollow breeze-block, in the rear column supporting my fuel tank. Last year chaffinches managed to rear their family here and the year before another great tit pair were the first to use this site.
In my rear garden another pair of great tits who had evicted the regular blue tits from a nest box earlier in the season, got their young brood up and out a few days ago. Meanwhile the homeless blue tits came round to the front garden and raised their brood under the red roof tiles, just out of picture. This family chose to leave their roof over the heads on this wet day too.
It was not a day for being out and about and not surprisingly, there were neither many visitors to the park or even much wildlife to watch. A group of about ten swallows were hawking low down along some trees that offered them some shelter from the driving rain. Surprisingly the garrulous nightingale by the park entrance was even heard singing in the rain.

On the park pond the usual ducks such as tufted duck, ruddy duck and mallard revelled in the downpour. They were joined by a male pochard when I peered through the rain drops in the middle of the afternoon.
Visibility was poor for the whole day and even the opposite side of the river Colne was difficult to make out under the big grey skies. Here at East Mersea Point even the sea scouts had packed up their sailing gear and gone back to their sodden tents.

Out on the mudflats apart from the usual oystercatchers, one lone bar-tailed godwit was seen while 8 turnstones took advantage of a deserted beach to search through the seaweed on the strand-line. Many of the turnstones were sporting their bright white heads which always seems so eye-catching probably because we get so used to seeing large flocks daily here during the winter when they all have brown heads.