Frosty start to Wednesday 12th and even although the sun shone all day, some shaded parts of the ground never thawed. This is the view from the park looking across the mudflats as the sun first pokes its head above some clouds. For the rest of the day, it was non stop sunshine and bright blue skies all over.The still conditions meant that all the sounds travelled a long way and several groups of brent geese could be heard calling from the outer edge of the mudflats.
A view looking through the trees of Cudmore Grove at the early morning sun, just above the horizon.
Everywhere was crispy-white with the frost on the ground, covering all the grasses, twigs and the leaves on the ground.
Whilst stuck in front of the computer, I noticed this green woodpecker flitting from bush to bush in my back garden, along with several blackbirds. Seconds after this picture was taken, the woodpecker flew off followed by the blackbirds. Suddenly this large brown bird hurtled into this tree and as soon as it perched, I could see it was a female sparrowhawk. That woodpecker had a very narrow escape!Driving along the East Mersea road I noticed the fieldfares again near Fen Farm perched on top of a tree plantation. Around 150 birds seemed to be present here and some others seen near the road were busy feeding on the hawthorn berries.
Also along the road were two kestrels rather unusually perched on some hedgerow trees almost side-by-side. A third kestrel was seen a little further along the road in Bromans Lane.
Two great spotted woodpeckers headed away from the trees of West Mersea, flying over the fields near Chapmans Lane with their distinctive undulating flight.
Roving reporter Nolly- my wife, was enjoying the wonderful winter sunshine along the Strood seawall and took these three photos - one above and two below. No wind today was a real treat.
The view of the Strood Channel beside the rickety jetty in front of the Firs Chase caravan site.
No winter walk round Mersea is complete without admiring the large flocks of brent geese. It is quite a spectacle seeing them rise into the air and hearing them call out loudly. Against the bright blue backdrop, the geese in flight are quite a sight and makes any seawall stroll quite memorable.Martin Cock had a walk along the Shop Lane seawall beside the Pyefleet and was fortunate to see 14 twite sitting up on a fence on the saltmarsh. Twite used to be a regular wintering finch along the saltmarshes here but numbers have declined sharply in recent years. Hopefully this group will stay around, although another small group had been seen by the Strood at the weekend.
A peregrine was also seen, as well as the usual marsh harriers on Langenhoe and the regular pair of stonechats by the seawall.
Having started the day admiring the sunrise off East Mersea, it seemed that the day would only be complete if the sunset was admired too, here from the Hard at West Mersea.
3 comments:
Fabulous photos, as always. Can I ask you about Mersea hedgehogs? Found one in the garden today, moving along very slowly in broad daylight. It must have been disturbed. Will it go back into hibernation now we've made it an artificial 'nest' of hay in a box buried under some hedge clippings, or is it doomed, do you think?
You would think that if the weather is mild enough for hedgehogs to be out in December, then there might be a few more sources of food around - more than in previous winters. I'm sure it will still hibernate when it feels that it has gone too cold.
Whether it chooses your "nest" is difficult to predict. We have a purpose-built hedgehog box in our garden under a log pile but we don't know if the hedgehogs like it as we've never opened it up to check on its usage. I wouldn't want to disturb anything that may be resting inside the box.
Thanks Dougal - that is reassuring. I do hope it will be OK - it was the fact that it was crawling around in a sluggish state during the daytime that worried me most. But since we don't want to disturb it, we'll never really know the outcome.
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