EAST TO WEST

Headed along the north side of the Island on Sunday 7th as far as the parish boundary between East Mersea and West Mersea. For most of the walk there was the colourful red saltmarsh to admire along the side of the seawall. The glasswort, also known locally as samphire, is creating carpets of red across many sections of the saltmarshes around the Island.

The tide was on its way out leaving more and more mud exposed. There was only a slight wind so viewing conditions were almost ideal but it needed lots of patience and scanning to find the birds of interest.

Along the seawall. 3 rock pipits flew past calling in the company of meadow pipits. The only birds on the Reeveshall pool were 6 little egrets, some of the 20 birds seen along the Pyefleet Channel.
The pair of stonechats were still present along the fenceline at the Shop Lane end and the same kestrel seen yesterday was still present. In fact the kestrels appear to be more obvious recently on both Mersea and Langenhoe, so they may have had success at breeding with 3 birds seen on both sides.
The most interesting birds were seen whilst scanning around fom the seawall near this spot pictured above, on the edge of Maydays and Reeveshall Marshes. First a green sandpiper flew out of the dyke, then the sharp whistle of a kingfisher was heard a few times but not seen and then a female bearded tit was seen in the reeds. This is the area where the bearded tits bred earlier in the summer and a male was seen by Martin Cock yesterday, so they are still hanging around this area.

The waders along the Pyefleet suddenly got interesting to look at, when up to a thousand of several species flashed passed. When I looked up the Channel to where they had been feeding, I could see a peregrine harassing some poor bird, dropping sharply down on it but without any luck in catching it.

Good numbers of grey plover and dunlin raced down channel with a few knot, ringed plover and redshank mixed in. Two greenshank were seen later and a flock of 200 lapwing were very noisy on Pewit Island. More groups of shelduck were being seen as numbers build back up for the winter. Near the fresh-water outflow at Brightlingsea there were about 150 brent geese to be seen.

On Langenhoe there were 3 marsh harriers, a nice flock of 150 goldfinches flying around, 2 snipe and 2 green sandpipers. In the Channel two great crested grebes could be heard calling to each other with their strange eery calls. A juvenile sandwich tern flew along the channel heading eastwards.