SNOOZING SWANS

Not much excitement during the walk along the seawall to the East Mersea Point on Thursday 13th. Even the resident mute swans had their eyes shut while they dozed on the path. This male is slightly lame in one leg but he wasn't in any mood to stand up to let me have a close look at it. In fact he was so relaxed he had his eyes closed whilst I stood only a couple of metres away from it.

New onto the pond were two female pochard, the first ones of the year here, possibly checking out potential breeding sites. Offshore three red-breasted mergansers were seen flying to the mouth of the Colne to feed.

On Friday 14th 600 brent geese were still feeding in the grazing fields along with at least 300 wigeon. A female sparrowhawk has been seen over the last two days flying to the corner of the park where the recently refurbished nest platform was installed last week.

One of several turnstones seen along the park beach as the tide started to recede. There are still plenty of golden plover around with one flock of 800 flying high over the car park on Friday.

The warm weather on Friday encouraged at least four adders to come out in their usual localities. The first butterfly of the year was a peacock fluttering over Bromans Lane.

Michael Thorley had a rewarding visit to the Youth Camp on Friday seeing short-eared owl, 5 Mediterranean gulls, great northern diver and a pair of stonechats.