This months WeBS count was conducted last Friday and Julie, Roger, John E and I spent a very pleasant morning around site enjoying the count. Here are the morning's results....
153 tufted duck
124 teal
78 mallard
32 shoveler
29 gadwall
14 goldeneye
9 wigeon
6 pochard
12 mute swan
9 cormorant
18 grey heron
2 little egret
37 coot
3 moorhen
A whopping 500 lapwing!
4 green sandpiper
2 redshank
1 great crested grebe
132 black-headed gull
28 common gull
Also on site on Friday was a very welcome record of a Cetti's warbler on the balancing pond. The bird was calling from reed and willow on the western side of the North Trail, just north of where the boardwalk path goes down the bank. Hopefully this is yet another bird, in addition to the 1-2 that appeared on the silt lagoons in October. A beautiful pair of stonechat also entertained us on the balancing pond in the same area as the Cettis'. We had fabulous views of them as they fed in bushes and long vegetation near the trail. And to top it all off, one of our bitterns flew right over out heads and onto Phase 2 in the afternoon as Julie and I prepared the supplementary bird food for Cottage Lane - perfect!
Stonechats are fabulous! Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)