BIRDS OF ESSEX

Went for a walk round the park and to East Mersea Point with Nick Green and the picture above is to prove that he's been spotted out and about after his self-imposed hibernation whilst helping to write a book. He showed me the amazingly detailed and authoritative new book about the Birds of Essex, which he has been heavily involved in editing with the author Simon Wood for the last nine years.
The brand new book has not reached the book-stores from India yet but having seen Nick's own advanced copy, I'll have to make sure I place an order soon as I won't be waiting for Christmas before I get my copy!

The book will be a valuable reference for many different aspects of birds that have been documented through the ages across Essex. Every species has been thoroughly researched and their status and fortunes over the years comprehensively documented. Mersea Island has contributed lots of useful sightings and counts too, all helping to provide a fuller picture of birds in the county.

In my brief flick through the book and recognising references to one or two personal bird records for Mersea , there is that little bit of satisfaction in knowing that all those hours spent out on the seawall, quite often provides a sighting of note in a county context.
Nick and I set out on our walk, eager to provide more interesting Mersea records for the second edition of the book!

Near the park entrance we admired a male yellowhammer which sat up on a bush, showing off his bright yellow head and overhead a yellow wagtail flew past. It was fairly quiet at the pond with a couple of tufted ducks, five teal and about 15 mallard on show. A chiffchaff could be heard calling and a stock dove was singing.
In the last couple of days up to 3 little egrets have been roosting here at high tide and a song thrush seen was the first for a month while two turtle doves were seen on a nearby hedge with a second couple in the car park.

At the Point there was still the large linnet flock of around 90 birds which is becoming a scarce sight in the county these days. Over the nearby fields there was a group of 15 goldfinches looking for thistles, 2 more yellow wagtails flew overhead and a lesser whitethroat was seen briefly.
On the mud 3 avocets from the local family were seen and 170 golden plovers were counted resting. Some distant black-tailed godwits and a small dunlin flock were also noted.


The moth trap was put out on Thursday night with plenty of cloud cover and no breeze, this big beast of a great silver diving beetle was attracted in. Finally after a poor mothing season there was a box full of moths to admire in the morning at 6.30am. This was the best night of the summer with about 300 moths of 36 species with the majority of moths being square spot rustics, setaceous hebrew characters and large yellow underwings.

A couple of pale orange treble lines were noted, as was centre barred sallow - the first one of the autumn. Amongst all the brown moths were several others noted with different colours such as the green carpet and this fresh looking brindled green pictured below.

Enjoyed an evening walk along the Strood seawall for the last hour and a half on Friday. Although the tide was already covering a lot of mud, there were still plenty of birds close to the Strood causeway at the eastern end. Up to 2000 gulls mostly black-headed gulls were flying in from the nearby fields to roost on the mud - or soon to be water when the tide reaches here. Fifty grey plovers were having one last feed amongst lots of redshank. Three greenshank were also seen and 10 little egrets stalked various shallows.

I was fortunate to catch the low-flying flash of blue belonging to a kingfisher along the borrow-dyke. I watched it perch for a minute on a metal rod surveying the murky ditch water, before it hurtled away along the dyke, up over the seawall and probably along the saltmarsh towards the Strood Hill reservoirs. This is the first post-breeding kingfisher that I have heard of this summer on the Island. Also heading to the reservoirs were 30 pied wagtails who dropped down into the reeds there for the night.

Tucked among the tussocks of the nearby stubble field were 200 golden plover settling down for the night, their presence almost went unnoticed except for a few calling out.

The sun dropped down with another golden sunset across the Strood Channel to catch the eye
Birds were still gathering to roost and in the borrow-dyke reedbed was a group of up to 40 corn buntings. Like the linnet flock earlier in the day, this is a scarce sight in Essex now, being able to see a late summer flock of corn buntings. Some of the birds were also flushed from the side of the seawall where they were possibly having one last feed amongst the old bristly-ox tongue plants. In previous years I have flushed corn buntings from the side of seawalls at dusk so I wonder if they roost on the ground sometimes.
Also in the reeds were a couple of reed warblers calling and the sight of a sedge warbler. The last bird noted was a local kestrel perched up on a telegraph pole in the fields.