BRENT GROUPS

Some of the 300 brent geese seen on the park's grazing fields on Friday 13th. Also present in the flock was the regular pale-bellied brent goose but no recent sign of the black brant.


Various groups of brent geese were arriving from the nearby mudflats and saltmarshes in the morning to feed in the fields.

At the park pond 15 tufted duck was a slight increase, while 12 gadwall and 20 shoveler were the same as recent days. At dusk the buck muntjac was seen at the back of the pond doing a bit of brief grazing before heading back into cover.

Still no sign of any snow buntings this week on the park beach although 24 were seen on Friday on the opposite side of the river at Point Clear.


It's been nice to see small finch flocks about the park with 15 chaffinches feeding on the hornbeam seeds under this tree in the car park, while 25 goldfinches and 30 greenfinches have been roosting at the park most nights recently. Two goldcrests have been seen on a couple of occasions recently.

In the hedges alongside the East Mersea road were 10 fieldfares near the pub and a mistle thrush near Meeting Lane.

Richard Hull and Richard Brown visited Langenhoe ranges on Friday and noted 2 barn owls, 2 hen harriers, 60 pintail, 12 red-breasted mergansers, 600 avocets, 2 green sandpipers, little owl and a bearded tit.

On Thursday 12th a barn owl was seen in the car headlights as it perched on a roadside sign near Fen Farm early in the evening. However when I reversed the car back for a better view the owl quickly flew away.
Earlier in the day 3 fieldfares flew over the country park car park calling.

The afternoon high tide had seen 200 black-tailed godwits on the fields along with 30 redshank, 20 turnstone, 5 dunlin and 300 brent geese.



The colourful sunrise offshore from Cudmore Grove on Wednesday 11th heralded a nice start to the day at the park. There was the usual variety of wildfowl and waders on the fields with 300 wigeon and 300 teal the main birds. In the distance towards Langenhoe Point a peregrine was seen amongst hundreds of lapwing and golden plover, as it headed over to the East Mersea Oyster Fishery.
Martin Dence reported seeing a woodcock flying from Bromans Farm towards the country park entrance on Wednesday.

On Tuesday 10th only 3 red-throated divers were seen from the park while Martin Cock saw the 300 great crested grebes and 7 Slavonian grebes further along to the west at Coopers Beach.
At the park 4 little egrets stood in the middle of the pools in the grazing field.