COOPERS STONECHATS

Three stonechats were very confiding at times near the Coopers Beach seawall on Saturday 5th. These birds could be the same ones that have been in this area since a family of four were first seen here on 17th August and then four again on 1st September.

Also with the stonechats was a wheatear feeding on the seawall by the clubhouse and sometimes on the newer counterwall nearby.

An eyecatching starling with cream-coloured wings and tail was seen feeding with a flock of 500 starlings at Coopers Beach, here feeding on the football pitch.

The seawall at Coopers Beach had been deliberately opened up in recent days to allow seawater off the land, after the sea breached the seawall on the high spring tides earlier in the week.

The old seawall between Coopers Beach and the Youth Camp has taken a real battering by the sea with the high tide on Monday 30th, flooding all of the fields. Some of the fields are still saturated. The only other birds noted on Saturday late morning were 20+ mallard, 2 grey herons and at least one snipe.

Andy Field later saw three red-breasted mergansers flying into the Colne on Saturday and then afterwards saw a curlew sandpiper with 200 dunlin on the mud near Ivy Dock, before it flew upriver.

A Clancy's rustic was a nice surprise in the Firs Chase garden moth trap late on Friday 4th. More pleased to find three the next night on Saturday 5th. The first Island record was in this garden on 9th July. This moth has been gradually increasing in southern England since the first record in Kent in 2002. As well as being a migrant moth, it seems there are some resident populations too.

A faded moth, the delicate was another migrant noted on 4th.

Two red and green carpets were noted on the 4th.

Two L-album wainscots were noted on the 4th with three the next night.
Twenty species were noted across the two nights.