SISKIN SIGHTING

An unexpected sight of five siskins which turned up to feed in the garden of Martin Cock's West Mersea garden on Tuesday 27th - the two photos kindly forwarded onto me by Martin. A  female and male pictured above.

Another photo of the male siskin taken through the glass of the window, showing its brighter yellow-green plumage. There have been a few other reports recently from north Essex of siskins visiting garden feeders.


At the Rewsalls area on Tuesday, Martin saw 20 redwings and 5 fieldfares and later a chiffchaff at the country park.

Four noisy Canada geese were on the park's grazing fields on Wednesday 28th. Pairs of Canadas and greylag geese often check out the breeding opportunities in these fields each spring but none have ever tried. Later three greylag geese were seen in the fields in the afternoon.
During a day of rain on Wednesday the grazing fields had a few more waders feeding on them with 100 redshank, 25 turnstone, 10 golden plover, 10 dunlin 5 black-tailed godwit, 20 curlew 6 lapwing and four grey plover.


Offshore a red-throated diver on Wednesday was the first one seen this year from the park, also in the Colne ten great crested grebes while 8 avocets were feeding along the edge of the mud.

The water rail was out feeding on the marshy margin of the park pond as the light faded at the end of Wednesday. A sparrowhawk perched on a tree at the back of the pond, a chiffchaff called from willows while a different sparrowhawk was seen later over the Point.


A chiffchaff was heard calling from the bushes by the park pond on Thursday 29th and also seen feeding among the reedmace.

A couple of red squirrel boxes were fixed high up the cedar tree in our Firs Chase garden in West Mersea on Friday 30th - thanks to the tree-climbing skills of Will Montgomery and his head for heights. A red squirrel was seen by Nolly twice at the feeder in the cedar during Thursday 29th.