Winter Wildfowl

It was blowy this morning so I decided to head to the Point to spend a couple of hours seawatching. The wind was a 20-25 mph southwesterly wind and unusually for this direction it was awkward getting some shelter behind the Coastguard's Tower. After a bit of toing and froing I found a spot that was reasonably sheltered and was joined by Ian.

During the next hour and three quarters we recorded five Red-throated Divers, two Red-breasted Mergansers, a Little Gull, 38 Teal, six Kittiwakes, four Pintails, seven Wigeon and 200 Sanderlings. The visibility at the crucial distance was very poor and as the tide dropped the birds slowed up.

I then had a look at the Marine Lakes to see if I could re-sight any of our leg-flagged Turnstones and recorded eight birds with leg flags on and two just with metal rings. These are likely to be a couple of our birds from last winter.

Black-headed Gulls & Turnstones