I'd not realised how much I missed the freshmarsh until this lunchtime when I popped down to Island hide for an hour. We re-opened the hide and access to the freshmarsh on Saturday. The freshmarsh looks in excellent condition and I am pleased to say there are lots of birds present.
Firstly the duck....in total maybe three or four hundred duck were present, still mostly in their drabbish eclipse plumages but with several males showing signs of 'turning' back into their more familiar apparel. There were good numbers of teal, gadwall, mallard and shoveler with a sprinkling of freshly arrived pintail and wigeon. Their larger cousins, the geese were well represented by a mixed bunch of greylags (on the grazing meadow) and nine Egyptian geese on the freshmarsh. On Monday there was a single pink-footed goose on the grazing meadow, no doubt he'll be pleased to hear the 'wink-wink' of his brethren as they arrive in their thousands from Iceland and Greenland in the next few weeks.
On the wader front, six very smart juvenile little stint kept close together on the freshmash while the single curlew sandpiper could not decide if his loyalties lay with the twenty or so dunlin or the seventy-five ruff avidly feeding on the mud. Also present were small numbers of black tailed godwits, ringed plover and common redshank.
Seven bearded tits came out of the reedbed briefly as they foraged at the base of the reedstems while a water rail poked about just a few yards to the right.
Earlier this morning there was a single spoonbill, kingfisher and an all too brief Lapland bunting...with plenty of these guys around in Scotland and elswhere on the east coast, it looks like being one of the best winters for this species for a good number of years. Raptors were well represented by a single peregrine and hobby, sparrowhawk, kestrel and several marsh harrier.