It was pretty much business as usual down the lakes and river today with most of the usual species seen or heard. The unseasonally mild weather continues to hoodwink us into thinking that maybe this winter has no teeth and that spring is nearly here. It's a nice thought but there's plenty of time left for things to go pear shaped. It was good though to see and hear the Grey Herons noisily staking their claim to nest sites at the heronry along the river today. I counted at least fourteen birds there, some of them flying in with twigs to build or repair nests, there must have been a lot more that were out of sight at the back of the trees as well.
I added just three more species to my shiny new 2012 New Hythe list today, bringing my total to 57 so far. First was a Grey Wagtail who bounced along the river by the small wood, second was an untidy flock of Lapwings seen later having been pushed off the river by the rising tide, and lastly a brief re-acquaintance with my old friend the Bittern, who decided to make an appearance as I chatted to Dennis and Doreen at the usual Streamside reedbed.
Once again i'm amazed that such a desperately shy bird should fly out of the safety of its refuge and sit on the reeds, out in the open, with seemingly little regard to our presence on the other bank. It stayed for a while, looking around almost curiously, before calmly turning round and clambering back out of sight.
Some of the other notable species seen today included at least half a dozen Bullfinches who seemed happier than usual to let me stare at them, albeit from a respectable distance, along with Chiffchaff, Goldcrest, Cetti's Warbler, two Kingfishers, a couple of Little Grebes, Green and Gt. Spotted Woodpeckers, Redshank, loads of Jays and a couple of Redwings. These were just some of the 48 species seen in all today which as I said is business as usual really at good old New Hythe.
6 comments:
Nice one Phil. Not sure if you got my email last week - I had a Green sand at the N end of Streamside Lake. It appeared to fly from the E bank and went off over the sewage works before appearing to drop down in the millstream. Might be worth checking out the top end of streamside in case it's still local.
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2012 list coming on well Phil, better than mine! :-) Fingers crossed for a bit of cold weather next month, might shake things up a bit :-)
ADAM
No I didn't get your e mail, i'll send you the address in case you've got it wrong. Did see Green Sand at southern end of Streamside recently but the island it was on is nearly flooded now. Will watch out for it again.
Great Phil, you captured the Bittern, yippee. I would like to see one, there are a couple at Slimbridge, but, the weather stops me from going.
Well done with the Bittern shots, always a birding pleasure.
Nice to add a few more to the list Phil and when one of them is Bittern it can't be bad :-)
Like the Blue Tit shot too.
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