AHEAD OF THE RAINS

Managed a walk along the beach at the country park on a sunny morning before more rain arrived on Sunday 22nd. The rain certainly arrived with a vengance around the middle of the day which even included a brief flurry of hail mixed in with the deluge.

Passing a pair of pied wagtails and a meadow pipit feeding on the beach in front of the cliff pictured above, I marched on towards the Point. One or two dog walkers and some fishermen were already on the beach there so it was a pleasant surprise to see 10 snow buntings fly overhead and land back down on the beach. The distinctive tinkling calls caught the attention as they passed by with their wing patterns flickering in flight. They were left to settle down to feed along the tideline. A couple of other birdwatchers were later rewarded with braving the rain, by seeing the snow buntings still present in the middle of the day.
Other birds noted along the seawall were the pair of stonechats still present and a couple of rock pipits by the saltmarsh and beach.

On the flooded section of the grazing fields there were still good numbers of wildfowl with 300 teal present along with 200 wigeon. Also seen were a few gadwall and shoveler, while 4 snipe were feeding in one of the pools.

In bushes near the pond 4 fieldfares flew off calling, otherwise there wasn't the same variety or number of small birds around the park as yesterday.