Par.

Report  Phil Barlow

Just been around par beach and surrounding area. Down the river were 2 little egret and common sandpiper. From the beach were oystercatcher and usual mix of gulls. The scrub area had linnet, a juvenile stonechat and pied/white wagtail. LBB gull on the pond and a grey wagtail near the car park. Most interesting for me today, in the scrub at dock end of beach, was a weasel attacking a rabbit!!! cheers An interesting day Phil. The Weasel  would have made a nice photograph.

Spit Beach

Report. Phil Barlow

Hi

Have just started to bird the area and found your site. Visited Spit this evening at high tide. There was a nice mix of waders with up to 20 ringed plover, a single knot, 8 turnstone and 9 dunlin. Out to sea were bh gulls, herring gulls cormorant and a solitary shag. A rock pippit flitted about. Hope this is of interest.

Thank you for the report Phil and welcome to the Blog.

Reports from Spit are always of special interest to us as are the other sites covered by the Blog.

Spit Waders.

Report. Phil Ouless


I wandered down to Spit Beach at about high water this afternoon. On and around the harbour wall were 32 Oystercatchers, 3 Grey Herons, 3 Little Egrets, 2 Curlews, 2 Common Sandpipers & 2 Wheatears. The rocks just west of the beach held 15 Turnstones & 8 Ringed Plovers.

Thank you for the report Phil. Spit definitely had the luck of the draw today.

Dunlin

Report. R. Lane Hardly worth bothering (you). Short visit to Par Bay today, at high tide , revealed only:

 

5x Turnstones & 1x Dunlin.


A little quiet today Roger.

Turnstones.

Report. R. Lane. 26th August 2011
A brief visit to Par today showed little of interest on the Pool, except 1 x Little Egret and 2 x Sand Martins overhead.

             The Bay was not much better, the tide was in and there were 7 x Turnstones working the tide-line and very tame (migrants?), allowing approach within 10ft (unusual)

             'Best of the Bunch' was a lone, adult winter MED GULL amongst the BHGulls at the water's edge (probably the same recent wintering? individual?). No juvs seen this year, disappointing.

Thank you for the report Roger. The waders are starting to come back. Should be getting busy real soon.

Kingfisher (photograph)

Report and photograph. Mark Whittaker.


Visited Par Beach Pool and the surrounding area at low tide this morning and saw two Kingfishers either end of the site using both the river and stream to fish. The attached picture of the male Kingfisher was taken near the Imerys works at the far end of the beach.




Great shot Mark. It did not take long to confirm and photograph Roger's sighting.

Kingfisher.

Report. R. Lane. 23rd August 2011

 A short visit to Par today. Seemingly not much on the Pond, except a drop more water ! At the 'West-End' walking over to the West Par river from the car-park, I heard and saw a Common Sandpiper fly up stream (low tide). Although I could not relocate the Sandpiper, a Kingfisher was fishing from the sawn off tree branches, at 45degs to the horizontal, as a perch, until it saw me and flew upstream out of sight !

 

Well done Roger. I am glad the Kingfisher is back. As the crowds thin out it probably will be seen a lot more. I am hoping to photograph them this Autumn once a feeding pattern has been established.

Wheatear

Report and Photograph. Nigel Climpson

On Spit Beach this afternoon two Wheatear and four Sandwich Terns.


Nice one Nigel.

Scaup?

Report and Photograph. A.Carey 17th August 2011

Popped down to Par Beach Pool when the sun came out and grabbed a couple of pics of Roger's indeterminate duck! For what it's worth I'd say it's an immature female Scaup, from the markings, which extend under the chin, unlike the female tuftie, which in my experience tends to stop at the bill. Whilst Roger and I were watching this bird from the car park, a kingfisher flew over the bushes behind us, and at speed across the lake, and over the island.

Attached a piccy of the duck, let me know what you think.

Thank you for photograph and report Andrew. 

Photograph. A. Carey

Scaup-Faced Tufted Duck?

Report. R.Lane. 16th August 2011

Another short visit to Par this afternoon showed that the 'Tufted Duck' (of 15th) was still present. But the female bird may be a Scaup ! At this early season it is more likely to be a 'scaup-faced' Tufted Duck. I should be glad if someone else with better optics should take a look at the facial pattern. Something about the rapidity of diving (scaup-like?) suggests scaup too, yet the apparently pointed head again suggests 'scaup-faced' Tufted Duck! Should have gone to Spec-Savers I guess !

             Meanwhile on the pond the Moorhen is down to 1 chick now. Despite 40+, BHGulls there was NO med.gull today(4pm). The Bay was empty apart from c.30 large gulls, and just 6 x 'B.H.Gulls', except that 1 of the 6, was an ad. MED.GULL, probably the one seen on 14thAug.. It was mid-tide and any sand.terns would probably have come in later with the tide.

I hope someone can supply you with the information Roger.

Tufted Duck

Report. R. Lane

             A quick trip to Par in this afternoon's rain showed the Moorhen still feeding the 2 v.young chicks and also my first autumn return Tufted Duck (a scruffy imm/fem), following Mallards since there were no other Tufted !

             Over the Bay were 2 x Gannets and 4 x Sand.Terns, but no waders seen due to walkers.

The Tufted Duck heralds the return of the natives. A new season is in the air..

Dipper

Inspired by my recent visits to :-  Visions of Nature. An Exhibition of Wildlife Art.

MED GULL

 Called in at Par Pond briefly today looking for a Med.Gull! Amongst c.50 BHGulls, there was a fine adult (wint.plumage) MED GULL (until holidaymakers drove it off !).

              The only other item of some interest was a female Moorhen, feeding 2 very small chicks (latish). Also a Gannet and 2+, Sand.Terns in the Bay. (Too late for waders, tide was right in.)

Report. Roger Lane. (Yesterday)

Thank you for the report Roger

Hopefully  the Blog will return to normal now after its summer break.
I would be interested to hear of any Kingfisher sightings along the eastern river, especially where they perch.

Record Numbers

The new look feeder station has certainly been a hit with our garden birds.
A staggering 22 Blue Tits and 13 Long-tailed Tits descended upon the station this afternoon at the same time. If you imagine a few Chaffinch, Coal Tits, Great Tits, Robin, Blackbirds Sparrows, Starlings , Dunnock, Goldfinches and Collared Dove also around  you would have to agree it was a rare sight indeed. This time last year we were lucky to have 3 Blue Tits and the odd L.T.T.
Times have certainly changed.
The breeding season has been a huge success with  families of  Bullfinches , Wrens, Magpies, Jays and off course the roof top Swifts.also chipping in to keep the numbers up.

Spit Beach (Friday)

I was back again at Spit Beach at noon today. Oystercatcher numbers were 72 and they were joined on the harbour wall by 3 Little Egrets, 4 Sandwich Terns    and 2 Whimbrel. 50+ Starlings were foraging in the seaweed along the high water line nearby.


Report Phil Ouless.


Thanks again for the report Phil.
The number of Oystercatchers has dropped a little but still impressive figures.

A Trip down the Valley.

Birds were in short supply but the Butterflies and Insects made up for it.
The wild flowers alongside  the riverbanks have grown to such a height it was difficult to see the river in places let alone a Dipper or Grey Wagtail. So the Dipper project has been temporary suspended till Autumn at least.
Back at the Sewer Works I found a nice spot (near Chiffchaff Corner) where I observed Chiffchaff and Long-tailed Tits frolicking in a dead looking tree.
Most of the days photographs were more record than publish but the information collected will probably save me many wasted hours this summertime.

Spit Beach.

I  was at Spit Beach at 11 a.m. today (one & a half hours after high water)and counted an impressive 106 Oystercatchers roosting on the harbour wall! Also present were 5 Shag & 2 Sandwich Terns.


Report Phil Ouless


Thanks for the report Phil. A very impressive number indeed. I wonder if Roger could inform us if this is a record or a normal occurrence for the time of year.

Spit Beach

Here are some photo's I took at Spit on 30th July:

 

Cormorants

Turnstones.

Curlews

Sandwich Tern (I think)

Photographs Andy Thomas.

Thank you for the photographs Andy

I like the Cormorants silhouette