18th December - no updates in 3 weeks due to a rather slow period. Most visits have had a real deja vu feeling about them!
I had been hoping to get Golden Plover - a bit of a gap in the year list - having failed to see any in the first winter period. Several flyover flocks had been recorded in the previous few weeks, but not when I was there. However, today I was in luck, a small flock of 21 birds flew in from the north and wheeled around for a while before departing. A splinter group or another flock of 8 then flew over and off east and finally a single bird was seen roosting with the hundreds of Lapwing.
A quick catch-up on birds from the past few weeks:
A nice 1st winter Caspian Gull appeared in the small gull roost on 29th November. However, since then the number of LWHG on site seems to have plummeted.
The long staying Dunlin and Oystercatcher were last seen by me on December 6th.
A male Shelduck turned up on December 13th and has remained ever since, though 4 were seen on the 15th.
I last saw the semi-regular Peregrine on December 3rd and there are now 2 pairs of regular Dabchick on site, which is nice.
The mild weather is not conducive to moving birds about, so Goldie might well be the last year tick of 2013. I keep hoping for Goosander, which I missed in November, or maybe a Smew, but I won't hold my breath. Still 129 is 4 more than last year, so not bad at all.
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