After the first chilly night of the Autumn a very small party met at Farlington Marshes in bright sunshine on Saturday 17th September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The start of the walk coincided almost exactly with low tide but a scan of the extensive mud flats only revealed 5 greenshank, and a few curlew, redshank and black tailed godwits along with a small flock of black headed gulls. Due to the state of the tide and the bright sunshine we decided to walk clockwise round the reserve for a change, starting in the bushes and hoping to end up at the lake to coincide with high tide and with the sun behind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we walked through the bushes goldfinch, greenfinch, blackcap, starlings, robins and a kestrel were noted along with woodpigeon and magpie. A typically loud cettis warbler called and, just for a change, showed itself as it flew across the path. As we approached the stream a flash of blue indicated a kingfisher which fortunately perched on an old gate and proceeded to dive repeatedly. We also saw teal, shelduck, wigeon, pintail, little grebe, cormorant, lapwing and mute swan, whilst over the reedbed and fields there were good numbers of swallows, house martins and sand martins. Moving onto the viewing area by the information hut we were able to add gadwall, shoveler, mallard, coot, moorhen and a female garganey and a water rail was heard but not seen. A distant white \u2018blob\u2019 revealed itself to be a cattle egret which very obligingly flew a lot closer to feed amongst the cattle and a couple of it\u2019s commoner cousins, little egret, were around, as well as a grey heron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Approaching the sea wall we noticed first one common buzzard and then a second starting to thermal upwards and as we watched a third bird became apparent. This one was very pale underneath with a smaller head and distinctly different feel about it. We continued watching as it gained height over us and then headed inland; the conclusion, after much discussion, was honey buzzard. Whilst we had been watching the buzzards a peregrine falcon had also joined them as they circled above us. Also a distinct call notified us to the presence of a yellow wagtail, briefly seen before disappearing into the long grass around the feet of the cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the sea wall, looking across the mud flats, grey plover, turnstone, dunlin, ringed plover and golden plover were added to the day list as were wheatear and linnet on the landward side. One or possibly two female marsh harriers were also seen out on the islands in the harbour. Whilst as we rounded the point a couple of Sandwich terns were feeding and about twelve seals were hauled out on the mudflats in the harbour. New additions to the day\u2019s list of waders included oystercatcher and common snipe; three of which caused a small identification headache being sat out in the edge of one of the mudflats instead of lurking in the long grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally arriving at the lake we settled down to have a good look as the waders that had congregated over high tide. There were large numbers of redshank and black tailed godwit with around fifteen greenshank, twenty knot, a handful of dunlin, an avocet and best of all two juvenile curlew sandpipers. On the lake itself were an impressive number of wigeon as well as teal and pintail. As we were watching all the waders suddenly lifted off simultaneously, the cause of which was a female sparrowhawk which proceeded to sit out by the side of the lake \u2013 our sixth raptor of the day. The birds slowly settled back down but no new species were added and we headed back to the car park after a very worthwhile 6 hours with 64 species seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A day of raptors After the first chilly night of the Autumn a very small party met at Farlington Marshes in bright sunshine on Saturday 17th September. The start of the walk coincided almost exactly with low tide but a scan of the extensive mud flats only revealed 5 greenshank, and a few curlew, redshank…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":329,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n