Tuesday 6 March 2012

Recurvance of an avocet

The run of birds rare for county or patch continues; Jeff Barker managed to find this avocet on D res this morning swimming about. Whilst plentiful at places like North Cave and Blacktoft they seldom reach us at Tophill - the last believed to be in 2001. The bird flew onto Watton NR shortly after where it remained most of the day:



Towards the end of the day it got a bit fidgety and was last seen heading north? – it has likely just overshot the Humber where a reported 700 had amassed over the weekend and will find its pals with no bother.

Tales too of sand martins in the county prompted a quick clearance of reeds in front of the sand martin colony just in case:

Saturday saw the 1st winter hen harrier over Decoy Fields again, and this treecreeper outside the wildlife centre:
treecreeper at wildlife centre office
And Mediterranean gull on D:



Along with one of the first lesser black-backed’s of the new season:


A rainy Sunday was a bit of a washout – but thanks to HVWG for this range of the usual candidates – displaying goldeneye:

Moorhen and lapwing:

Oystercatcher:

Little grebe:

Shoveler:

Today also saw willow tit in D woods, a lone red head smew and a black-tailed godwit on Watton, 5 goosander on D res (and latterly on Watton), 2 whooper swans on D res. Have a look on Martin’s page to see if anything turned up late on the roost. The barn owls were showing well on north scrub and thanks to Tony Robinson for these great pics of the short-eared owls still present on Struncheonhill – 2 today:




Visit Tony's site too - for some great new pics from the perimeter of Tophill!