ELUSIVE RING OUZEL

A male ring ouzel eventually showed itself well after staying hidden and elusive in the Firs Road and Feldy View cemeteries during a drizzly morning on Saturday 12th. The bird was initially heard to call very briefly from behind some trees in the Feldy View field. Despite lots of searching it failed to show and I continued my walk onto the Strood seawall. Returning an hour later, the ring ouzel just happened to fly into a tree, perching for a few minutes and calling as it flew back out but soon disappearing again.
 

Andy Field joined the search and after a good half hour, the ring ouzel was eventually found feeding on the berries on this rowan tree in the adjacent Firs Road cemetery. Every so often it would fly into a tree and remain hidden for a period. After flying off, it eventually came back to the same rowan tree to feed on the last small clump of berries.
It was still in the area mid afternoon and was seen by Martin Cock feeding on the edge of the field beside Feldy View.
This ring ouzel is probably the first sighting in West Mersea as previous sightings have always been at East Mersea, except for one near Bower Hall a few years ago.

There were good numbers of blackbirds in the cemetery fields with 25 blackbirds flying about and feeding, many of them continental, also three song thrushes while two redwings were seen later by Martin. A nice flock of 70 goldfinches were feeding in the birch trees, a tit flock was also in the area, while 2 great spotted woodpeckers, green woodpecker, 2 chiffchaffs and 40+ swallows were present. Not surprisingly a sparrowhawk made a couple of low flypasts over the cemetery.

From the Strood seawall, high tide covered the mud but birds noted included 50 linnets on the seawall, while 10 little egrets, marsh harrier on Ray Island, 5 reed buntings, rock pipit and three chiffchaffs along the dyke.

The stonechat was present along the Strood seawall on Friday 11th keeping a tight grip on a bush in the strong wind.
A little owl was unexpectedly flushed from the hedgeline beside the Firs Chase caravan site and flew into trees in Feldy View.

A grey plover was one of the few waders seen along the Strood just prior to high tide on Friday.

Under the grey skies over the Strood, fifty linnets were feeding beside the seawall, while along the channel were 50 brent geese and 20 mute swans in the Ray Channel.

At East Mersea on Friday twenty brent geese were feeding in the country park grazing field, also 200 wigeon in the area seen by Martin.