9th February - Hampden Park
An interesting day at the park: after watching a rare MEDITERRANEAN GULL on the pond I bumped into Derek who said that a CATTLE EGRET had been seen in recent days coming to roost with the usual LITTLE EGRETS. So I took a stroll there just before dusk and was amazed to find at least ten of them already dotted around the island. Be interesting to see if any decide to hang around and breed this year...
4th February - Hampden Park
This COMMON GULL was amongst the many BLACK-HEADED GULLS on the duckpond this afternoon - a patch tick!
20th January - West Rise Marsh
Good for gulls this afternoon with single CASPIAN and YELLOW-LEGGEDS dropping in for a brief bath before flying back off towards the coast. There were even more SHOVELER today with at least 210 loafing around, and a solitary REDWING was on site by the bee hives.
7th January - West Rise Marsh
As usual for early January in a bit of a phase...not much
enthusiasm to go birding although I did manage a short trip
to the marsh this afternoon. This unusually confiding
KINGFISHER was along one of the sewers and there were
a couple of WATER PIPITS, 5 COMMON GULLS, and a
good number of SHOVELER (at least a hundred).
