Wednesday 11th February
This morning sunny but cold.
A morning visit to the Meadow found the floods back in lake mode with just a narrow strip of land between the swollen river and the flood water and the waters extending a long way north. There were plenty of birds around with wigeon, teal and shoveler back to their usual numbers. There were also at least 8 PINTAIL, a female SHELDUCK and a male POCHARD as well as two cormorants on the river itself.
The waders were tending to favour the narrow strip near the Perch between the floods and the river. There were two REDSHANK, a single sleeping BLACK-TAILED GODWIT and a sleeping DUNLIN as well as good numbers of lapwings.
By Burgess Field NR gate there was a male bullfinch with several greenfinches and a mistle thrush was on the Meadow itself. There was also a noticable passage of skylarks on the move this morning with at least 20 over in one's or two's, almost all heading northwards. Perhaps they are returning from a sojourn down to the coast during the cold weather. The one bird which is still noticable by its absence is fieldfare which still hasn't been seen this year.
From OOS (MBG):
A pair of GOOSANDER on the "lake", 2 snipe and a KITE flying over in Burgess Field NR.
The sleeping dunlin ...
... and a sleeping godwit © Adam Hartley
A morning visit to the Meadow found the floods back in lake mode with just a narrow strip of land between the swollen river and the flood water and the waters extending a long way north. There were plenty of birds around with wigeon, teal and shoveler back to their usual numbers. There were also at least 8 PINTAIL, a female SHELDUCK and a male POCHARD as well as two cormorants on the river itself.
The waders were tending to favour the narrow strip near the Perch between the floods and the river. There were two REDSHANK, a single sleeping BLACK-TAILED GODWIT and a sleeping DUNLIN as well as good numbers of lapwings.
By Burgess Field NR gate there was a male bullfinch with several greenfinches and a mistle thrush was on the Meadow itself. There was also a noticable passage of skylarks on the move this morning with at least 20 over in one's or two's, almost all heading northwards. Perhaps they are returning from a sojourn down to the coast during the cold weather. The one bird which is still noticable by its absence is fieldfare which still hasn't been seen this year.
From OOS (MBG):
A pair of GOOSANDER on the "lake", 2 snipe and a KITE flying over in Burgess Field NR.
The sleeping dunlin ... ... and a sleeping godwit © Adam Hartley