SKYLARKS IN THE SUN

What a change in the weather on Tuesday 8th with the sun shining all day and hardly a trace of wind all day. The big blue sky brightened up the whole place and it seemed like spring wasn't too far away! Even some of the skylarks were starting to sing!

There were plenty of the usual waders and wildfowl in the park's grazing fields, especially during the high tide. The picture above shows some of the roosting 250+ black-tailed godwits and 100+ redshanks in the main pool, where there were also 100+ lapwings, 50 curlew and a few snipe. Also in the fields were a big flock of 1000 brent geese as well as 400 wigeon, 300 teal and a little egret.


The sun continued to shine throughout Tuesday right up until it set, providing the nice image of a few silhouettes of waders gathering in the fading light on the mud at the Point. Waders arriving to feed on the mud were redshank, dunlin, knot, grey plover, turnstone, oystercatcher and a few bar-tailed godwits.

In the river a few groups of shelduck were waiting for the tide to turn, while gathering for the night-time roost were the hundreds of black-headed gulls. Four red-breasted mergansers were noted and 22 jackdaws flew east to roost.

Earlier in the day the 2 female scaup were still present, along with 4 tufted ducks and a pochard on the farm reservoirs at the bottom of the Strood Hill,


There were still 24 lapland buntings flying around this weedy field on Monday. The flock were feeding on the ground initially before flying up and circling round several times, giving out the occasional distinctive call. The flock then split into two groups with 16 of the birds continuing to fly around the fields. Also seen were a few skylarks and reed buntings.

The 2 female scaup were noted again on the Strood Hill reservoirs on Monday for the second day. They were first reported on Sunday along with a male hen harrier and a few lapland buntings in the weedy field.