This morning was noticeably colder than lately, but started off with a light shower to make us feel at home. I persuaded Dave that we should try walking along the road initially to enhance our chances of finding me a Marsh Tit for my Local Year-list. This nearly paid off when we found a large number of tits visiting a feeder in the village. These included several Coal Tits, and a very brief flight view of what was possibly a Marsh Tit. Unfortunately after about 15 minutes we hadn't seen it again, and we gave up.
Back on the fields we were seeing very little indeed. The flash pools eventually gave up 32 Teal, a Lapwing, and a few Mallard but things were looking pretty grim.
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| Teal |
Its not every day you find a first for your patch and still describe the experience as grim, but that was the case when Dave drew my attention to a Kittiwake in the field beyond the Morton Brook. It was clearly a Kittiwake and definitely dead.
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| An ex-Kittiwake |
Seabirds can turn up inland because they are taking a shortcut on their annual migration, but more likely because they have been battered by storms at sea and, unable to feed, have been blown inland. Some find sanctuary, like the Earlswood bird, but many must die a sad death in a field in the middle of nowhere.
We left it where it lay and continued to the raptor watch point, which we noticed was now smothered in plastic. HOEF have, after a gap of several years, resumed their tree-planting programme here.
It looks as though they plan to plant in the big field between the pool field and the Morton Brook. The chances of seeing passage Wheatears or Ring Ouzels here may have got that little bit slimmer.
Sigh!
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