Hello
Here is this weeks summary of what has been sighted at Titchwell.
Monday, was the monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) which was completed on a beautiful calm and sunny day though this can make counting Freshmarsh challenging as many birds are in silhouette. Below is a summary of the count which is about normal for this time of year at Titchwell:
12 avocet, 302 bar-tailed godwit, 294 black-tailed godwit, 4 dunlin, 68 gadwall, 3 greenshank, 20 lapwing, 40 ruff, 30 shoveler, 1 snipe, 2 spotted redshank, 513 teal, 21 wigeon, 3 spoonbill, 3 great white egrets, 108 grey plover, 97 oystercatcher, 26 redshank, 60 turnstone, 1 pintail, 15 pochard, 6 tufted duck.
Tuesday 22nd September 1 great skua, 2 red throated divers and a guillemot were sighted on the sea along with 2 eider and a several sandwich terns feasting on the sand eels. A pied flycatcher, 2 wheatear, 2 stonechats, a snow bunting and 2 Lapland buntings were around Thornham Point area. Whilst in the evening the gull roost picked up a pace with 20 yellow-legged gulls into roost, along with 1500 black-headed gulls and 80 lesser black-backed gulls.
Snow bunting, Les Bunyan
Wednesday 23 September, a red backed shrike was found in the morning along the hedgerow on Thornham grazing marsh providing distant views. Later on, several whinchats were seen perched on the fence wires. On the Freshmarsh 2 curlew sandpipers dropped in along with 100 golden plovers for a brief rest bite.
Thursday 24 September a merlin was spotted by a visitor dashing across the saltmarsh whilst 3 hobbies were hawking for dragonflies over the visitor centre area and to continue the raptor theme a sparrowhawk perched itself on the anti-predator fence on Freshmarsh. Wednesdays red backed shrike was still present as was the Lapland bunting and snow bunting that are providing excellent views.
Lapland bunting, Les Bunyan
With strong northerly winds expected this weekend we recommend a spot of sea watching, though you will want to wrap up well.
Don't forget to let us know your sightings. You can email us at: titchwell@rspb.org.uk or drop us a tweet by tagging: @RSPBTitchwell on twitter.
See you soon
Lizzie Bruce
North West Norfolk Reserves Warden
Thanks for the counts. Interesting. Good to hear that Titchwell is providing a rich haven for birds. Are there graphs of the year to year species trends anywhere? Be interesting to see. (Winter averages and breeding numbers too.)
We haven't published any just yet but we will be making a start on our report once that is completed we can share some of the data from that