Feb 7th
Although a sunny day, Sunday’s bright weather bought with it a very strong wind for myself and Paul, as usual from the south west and part of the latest storm.
At times it was impossible to look through the scope, keeping it still was a problem as was the watering of the eyes due to the wind.
Consequently due to the weather, normal passerine counts on the survey were low but being high tide I did pick up some roosting birds on my area, most notably Lapwing (800), Golden Plover (450) and at least 2200 Dunlin.
4 Green Sandpipers were again feeding together in the same flood was good, as was 110 Avocet roosting on the river west of Egypt Bay,17 Turnstone completed the river count.
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| Avocet |
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| Part of the massive Dunlin flock |
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| Giant container ship at Coryton |
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| Grey Plover |
Unusual sight of the morning goes to the photos below, whilst walking along the river wall a flock of Linnets got up and some got blown over the wall with the wind. I grabbed a couple of photos just in case a Twite was amongst them and noted something in the corner of my vision appear and disappear back below the wall, at the time I thought Crow.
Moving on as I was on a transect, I checked the camera later, it shows a Crow which looks like it has a Linnet, on closer inspection however the Linnet has been grabbed by yellow feet. I suspect a Kestrel or a Merlin has grabbed the linnet and the Crow was trying to relieve it of the prey.
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| Wind blown Linnet with the Crow/Kestrel/Merlin - who knows? |
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