RAINED ALL DAY

Waited for the rain to stop on Monday 9th but it kept falling and the walk at the end of the day along the seawall near Shop Lane in East Mersea was a very wet walk. The cold breeze tried to put a dampner on the walk but as always a nice selection of birds in the last hour of the day made the walk worthwhile.

Many pools of water lie in the fields as in the picture above. There was an interesting selection of waders in this grass field with 300 golden plover, 50 black-tailed godwits, 50 lapwing, 20 redshank and a grey plover. On the nearby Reeveshall pool 6 pintail was an interesting sight amongst the 70 teal, 10 shoveler, 10 mallard, snipe and a pair of greylag geese.

Two marsh harriers were seen quartering the Reeveshall reedbed while over on Langenhoe there was the now regular sight of the ringtail hen harrier joining the 3 marsh harriers for the evening roost. Thirty jackdaws and 100 rooks flew off Reeveshall as they headed north to roost.

The only waders of any note seen along the Pyefleet on the short walk, were 10 avocets that arrived from the Colne. They joined what seemed to be mainly redshank feeding on the mud.
A male red-breasted merganser flew out of the Pyefleet heading east.



It was a very soggy walk across the field by the Shop Lane wood pictured above. At the end of the day a little egret flew into the trees to roost and 4 yellowhammers were settling down along the hedgeline. A brown hare sprinted away to the far side of the field.

There was a report of 2 short-eared owls seen on the Rewsalls marshes by Coopers Beach on the Monday. Andy Field managed to see 2 great northern divers, 6 red-breasted mergansers at West Mersea as well as a common seal close to the end of the jetty at the Hard.