Another cold day on Friday 22nd at the park with occasional flurries of small snow flakes blowing throughout the day. Nothing settled but many of the shallow watercourses had a thin layer of ice all day long.
The wigeon didn't seem to mind with many of them enjoying grazing the inside of the seawall undisturbed by the lack of walkers. This flock of 300+ took off as I walked along late afternoon. Not much else on the fields with 30 lapwing, 5 snipe and 4 tufted duck in the dyke. One male marsh harrier crossed high over the fields on its way to the Langenhoe roost as did a female flying upriver a short while earlier.
On the park pond 36 gadwall, 8 shoveler and 2 tufted duck were present along with a few mallard, wigeon, teal and little grebes. In the trees behind the pond 20 stock doves were waiting to go to roost. On the grass beside the pond a curlew and a snipe were feeding along with lots of moorhens. Two great spotted woodpeckers flew over the car park in the morning, otherwise the park was quiet today.
At the end of Thursday 21st a water rail flew across Bromans Lane as Ian Black was driving towards the park. A pair of kestrels were noted flying round one of the barns at Bromans Farm in the morning.
On Wednesday Andy Field saw one pochard remaining from a group of nine noted earlier in the day at the park pond while also seeing 5 waxwings still by the East Mersea road near Meeting Lane. At West Mersea a harbour porpoise popped into view while Andy was watching a Slavonian grebe offshore, where there was also a great northern diver seen too.
On Tuesday 19th a ruff was on the fields and two pochard were on the park pond with a siskin seen near the park entrance.
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