Friday 11 March 2016

A benign day!

Dense fog on the peninsula this morning, put paid to any thoughts of sea watching which was probably a mercy. As the fog lifted a wander around the bushes on The Point found very little, a smart male Sparrowhawk unsuccessfully swooped on the House Sparrows at West Beach. The Lighthouse garden seemed to be an avian free zone apart from Wood Pigeons, Magpies and a Crow.
Even the Black Redstarts were hiding from me today. A Peregrine was around the power station and apart from the resident Robins, Dunnocks and Blackbirds I saw very little.
On the New Diggings the 2 Black-necked Grebes were joined briefly by the drake and 2 duck Smew before they went back onto Burrowes to join 6+ Goldeneye and the usual wild fowl also a Great White Egret there.
A walk up the track from the ARC car park to the pines saw 3 Marsh Harriers, one of which tussled with a Bittern right in front of me (still no camera), a Snipe flushed from beside the path, a red head Smew on the top pit and a Chiffchaff was fly catching around the Bamboo.
Another plod around the Scotney complex found 3 Black-necked Grebes and a Goldeneye of note on the main lake. Around the back a Green Sandpiper, 2 Avocet, 4 Pintail, 6 Little Grebes and a few each of Skylark, Corn and Reed Bunting. On the sward 16 Ringed Plovers, 14 Dunlin, 4 Curlew, 3 Redshank,  6 Oystercatchers and 7 Brent Geese among the feral Barnacle Goose flock.
Springfield Bridge round to Dengemarsh this afternoon, saw a Bittern over the reed bed, 10+ Reed Buntings, c40 Lapwing on Hayfield 3 which must very soon host a Garganey, 2 Bearded Tits chasing along the ditches, 3+ Marsh Harriers and a Peregrine putting up all the Wigeon and Greylags.
This evening a Slavonian Grebe was on the New Diggings along with the Black-necked Grebes and the drake Smew again.
6 Great White Egrets and 26 Little Egrets roosted at the ARC this evening.

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