Sunday 23 August 2009

A Mixed bag

I was minful of the big tides predicted this weekend so I went to check out patrington haven on Friday night just to see how high it came up.
The lagoon was completely flooded leaving very little space for the waders but there were some perched on the extreme outer spits, amd one confiding golden plover landed within 10m of where I was stood.
On the walk down there were a couple of willow warbler,grey heron,yellow wagtails lots of hirundines and a distant marsh harrier.
There was also a pair of whinchat on the brambles on the opposite bank suggesting a small movement (13 were recorded at Spurn on Saturday).
Having sorted a spot I was back again before first light on saturday morning and got to the spit for about 5.30.
The river was already pouring into the lagoon , it was like a couldron and all the birds appearde to be whipped into a frenzy, I was only there 5 minutes when a large raptor shot over my head at what felt like about 3ft, it looped round and perched about 25m in front and I managed a few shots albeit in poor light.
The river continued to flood and wadres were whizzzing about all over the place.
Eventually the spit covered and it was all over.
I made my way back to the car and then on to Spurn.
There was a single snipe on canal scrape a few common waders on the river bank along side the road down to Spurn.
Not much on Beacon lane but a small seal on the beach at the end was a nice suprise.
Quite a bit going on at beacon ponds-all quite distant but plenty of terns and common waders.
All in all an interesting couple of days.







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