The sea fog that rolled in continued to be present all weekend and if it wasn’t so warm you could have been mistaken for it being October!
The weather conditions did make it prime for lost seabirds and a fall of migrants on the east coast.
A Friday sea watch produced a long-tailed skua heading west plus 6 Arctic skuas and several gannets.
On Saturday morning a pied flycatcher was found at Thornham Point in the bushes, whilst a whinchat was seen on the grazing marsh fence line.
With a steady arrival of chiffchaffs and willow warblers, there is always an expectation to find something rarer. For one of our regular visitors this occurred on Sunday morning when he found a greenish warbler calling in the bushes at Thornham Point. Their call can resemble the ‘che-wee’ call of a Pied Wagtail. Greenish warblers can appear smaller than chiff-chaffs but just as active as they actively move through the bushes. They generally have a white unmarked belly, a single wing-bar and an obvious supercilium. Whilst we waited for the bird to show 2 pied flycatchers were observed flycatching.
The greenish warbler remained at Thornham Point on Monday, whilst on the sea 4 Arctic Skua’s flew west along with decent numbers of gannets.
Tidal marsh has hosted 5 grey plovers, 4 golden plovers, 100+ oystercatchers, a greenshank and 3 spoonbills.
On the Freshmarsh highlights this weekend have included 2 curlew sandpiper, 2 little stints, greenshank, 2 common sandpipers, 4 wood sandpipers, along with plenty of ruff, avocets and black-tailed godwits. On Monday an arctic skua spent some time chilling out on the Freshmarsh before stirring up all the birds on there.
Greenshank, Phill Gwilliams
For those who like their gulls, up to 3 yellow-legged gulls and a Caspian gull have been seen coming into roost.
At least one great white egret continues to be seen on the reserve, often found feeding in the reedbed pool, and if you are lucky you might luck in on the daily bittern sighting. The Cetti’s warblers have started to be heard again, with at least two heard around the Fen Hide area.
Not forgetting Patsy’s reedbed area where Lurking amongst the other wildfowl has been a female red-crested pochard and a couple of little grebes.