Close up and personal

At times that's just what its felt like here on the Sands at times over the last few days with particularly over the weekend and Monday a fantastic 2800+ wetland birds using the lagoons and grazing marsh to roost and feed on. There's been plenty of variety too and the odd returning rarity with the green-winged teal returning from its brief holiday over at Weldrake Ings!

Simply lots of birds!

Green-winged teal from Monday in front of Ousefleet hide

And on Tuesday when it was windy sheltering on Ousefleet lagoon

Duck numbers have been really good considering that its February and in many years the lagoons are often frozen up, but with this continued mild (although there was a bit of frost and ice this morning) the duck have been crowding out the lagoons or feeding on the grazing marsh. This has included an excellent count of 392 wigeon, 400 teal, 85 gadwall, 110 mallard and then handfuls of tufted duck, shoveler, and up to five pochard. 

Duck look so nice at this time of the year in the clear winter light

Wigeon

Teal

Pochard

Gadwall - their true beauty only seems to come out in good light - enlarge to see why

Sometimes though poor light can give some nice photo's - this one was a little by chance

The quarrelsome coot continue to arrive back on site while the little grebes and moorhens stay exactly where they've been all winter! Interesting to see on Sunday a moorhen eating reed dried leaves, there can't be much nourishment in them so not sure why it was eating them? Maybe for a bit of fibre or to line the stomach. Interesting too to see that a few herons are heading west back to their heronry at Hook Island maybe, it won't be long before they have eggs as they are early breeders. 

Fighting coot

Moorhen with reed leaf just before it guzzled it down

Still a few pink-footed geese about but only in the dozens, it seems I'm either missing the roost flights or they have already gone back up towards Lancashire. 

And before todays freeze up there had been a superb wader resurgence on site with on Sunday a spectacular sight of 1700 lapwings in front of Ousefleet hide, these have been joined on and off (although not always at once for some reason) by 62 black-tailed godwits, 32 dunlin, 8 spotted redshank, common redshanks, snipes, 50 curlew and unusual for Ousefleet a single golden plover in with the lapwings. 

Black-tailed godwits

Redshank

Snipe feeding along the edge of Townend lagoon

Lapwings from this morning with a bit of frost on their backs, wings and tail

Lapwings and godwits in flight

With all these prey items swimming and flying about the birds of prey have also been spectacular with marsh harriers, ringtail hen harrier, sparrowhawks, buzzards, kestrel and on Monday morning 3 red kites that emerged from the reedbed. Interesting really and the question is were they feeding or had they roosted in the reedbed with the harriers? The barn owl continues to entertain with birds showing nicely at times around Marshland and Ousefleet. 

Buzzard - its a bit of a show off really

Marsh harrier video of one hunting

And a superb couple of shots of one of the Kites from Jill Hunt - a big thank you for these

As for small birds there is certainly a bit of return thrush passage with fieldfares feeding in with a few hundred starlings in the fields next to the reserve and a few blackbirds and song thrushes along the hedges, also a few singing skylarks - always a pleasure to hear. The Cettis warblers are now starting to show a little as they sing while the little party of bearded tits at Xerox were calling this morning, look out for them feeding in the reed panicles along the edge of lagoon. Still a few stonechats too and the tree sparrow numbers are building up and starting to inspect the boxes ready for the breeding season. Nice to see the goldcrests are still with us, not always that they winter on site, and kingfisher was yet again seen at the weekend, but its so camera shy this year!

Male blackbird

Robin in song - simply one of the joys in life just to stop and listen to such a beautiful sound

Pheasant

Magpie

Fieldfare

At the weekend I went with Masha to see the superb black-throated thrush down in Grimsby, here's a picture or two of this Eastern vagrant for those that are interested

A couple showing the ages of the different feathers

We also called in to have a quick look at our Tetney reserve and although it was a little windy and the tide was well out it was nice to see these brent geese looking very dapper as they gain their breeding season plumage.

We also went to the other end of the promenade in Cleethorpes to look at the turnstone roosting Groyne, again the tide was out but there was a lovely variety of waders out on the beach and some close up turnstones enjoying whatever people had dropped on the floor!  And of course it would have been rude not to have had an ice-cream too, with extra toffee sauce and nut sprinkles. On a slightly more on-topic observation its been quite interesting how this relatively new disturbance free at high tide rock groyne seems to have rejuvenated the turnstone numbers on this part of the coast.

Is that tripe?

I'll finish with another superb frosty morning sunrise from today at Blacktoft