With ten whole days off over the Christmas and New Year period, I was expecting to have a halcyon period of birdwatching. But as the norm in our household, I was doing those odd jobs that needed doing, going on shopping trips (groan) and of course, looking up at the dark, rain-filled clouds that appear whenever I get the time to go out birding. All my dreams and schemes to get my yearly total to 160 lay in tatters; 155 would have to suffice.
So on New Year’s day, I had the chance to get out of the house. The weather was forecast to be beautiful sunshine with a cool breeze but thankfully no rain. I decided to go to Old Hall Marshes which was a random choice for me as I have only ever been there twice in my life. But the thing with birding on 1st Jan is that you can start a new year list – if you do one that is and every species is a good one.
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| Old Hall Marshes RSPB reserve |
From the car park, I took a clockwise direction and basically walked the whole circumference of the reserve. No ideas how far that was but with the heavy rain over the past few weeks, and a less than even path, the going was heavy to say the least. The hard bit is trying to look up at the sky for raptors, geese and waves of waders while avoiding slipping over into the thick mud or worse, the water.
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| View from Pennyhole Bottom (I know) |
Old Hall Marsh is renowned from its strongholds of
Curlew,
Grey Plover and wintering
Brent Geese. The latter was very much in evidence with skeins crossing the Essex skyline and floating down into the grazing marsh areas.
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| Brent Geese |
There were 100’s of
Wigeon and
Teal swimming along the Salcott channel along with four
Pintail (2 drakes) and a couple of
Red-breasted Mergansers, Huge flocks of
Golden Plovers(400+) and
Lapwings(850+) lifted upwards as a
Marsh Harrier glided past them and
Common Redshank, Oystercatchers and
Dunlins called as they flew low into land at the waters edge.
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| Red-breasted Mergansers |
Along the water’s edge, a few
Rock Pipits and
Pied Wagtails were feeding on insects in the seaweed. They ran along the sea wall flying a few feet to catch their prey.
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| Not the best shot of a Rock Pipit |
Offshore, a couple of
Goldeneye did great disappearing acts as they dived under the water and surprisingly, a female
Common Scoter played the game with them.
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| Looking towards Tollesbury |
After about 5 hours of trudging through the mud, over stiles and through iron gates, I eventually made it back to the car park. I had seen that a Little Owl and a
Barn Owl had been seen regularly around the Warden Office and car park but was still taken aback when this beautiful creature landed on the fence. It stayed long enough to pose for a few snaps before dropping down on an unfortunate field vole and carrying it off for dinner.
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| Barn Owl |
Birds seen:
Little Grebe, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Canada Goose, Brent Goose, Greylag Goose, Shelduck, Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Tufted Duck, Pochard, Pintail, Goldeneye, Common Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser, Kestrel, Marsh Harrier, Coot, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Grey Plover, Common Snipe, Turnstone, Common Redshank, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwit, Barn Owl, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Woodpigeon, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Rock Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Dunnock, Stonechat, Blackbird, Long-tailed Tit, Starling, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Linnet, Reed Bunting
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