SNOW TO SLUSH

The thaw was well underway on Monday 11th, although in the picture above by the Strood seawall, there's still plenty of snow lying around. Many of the streets around West Mersea are filled with slush and in many places there's still several inches of snow lying about. It was less cold today and there was hardly any wind which made a big difference.

There are still lots of fieldfares and redwings around West Mersea with one flock of about 70 birds tucking into the apples on a small tree along from the Dabchicks. When a sparrowhawk glided nearby, the fieldfares and lots of blackbirds all flew off and landed on nearby bushes. A dozen redwings fed on cotoneaster berries in Firs Chase where there was also a very brazen fox trotting up the street at 1pm.

Ten snipe were in various ditches by the Strood fields and other than 2 reed buntings and a meadow pipit, no other small birds around the snow covered fields.
At least 3 marsh harriers were flying around the Ray Island saltmarsh, which seemed to have less snow on it and a small flock of skylarks were noted over here.

In the Channel good numbers of wildfowl were noted with 400 teal, 300 wigeon, 100 shelduck and the main brent goose flock on the Peldon side of 700 birds. Not as many waders as usual with one avocet seen along with small numbers of knot and black-tailed godwits the other birds of interest.

Around the boat moorings near the Hard, there was red-breasted merganser, goldeneye, 12 little grebes and a lone coot too!

A brief afternoon walk around the country park yesterday on Sunday, was accompanied with a few more flurries of light snow. A woodcock was seen briefly flying over the car park heading to the clifftop trees. Andy Field had earlier seen two woodcock at either end of the cliff-top tree plantations.
What was unexpected was the sight of two water rails 20 metres apart, scuttling along a frozen ditchline,while I walked along the nearby path just a few metres above them.

At the near-frozen park pond there was still the large gathering of 150+ ducks around the unfrozen section with 30 gadwall being of interest. A couple of snipe were seen in the snow nearby and the resident fox made its regular appearance.
A flock of 25 fieldfares and a dozen blackbirds fed in a fruit tree to the north of the park, while nearby 2 green woodpeckers were seen on a snowy field.

In the field by East Mersea road, there were still 100 skylarks feeding on the rape crop covered with the snow.