"For now we are young let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see" Neutral Milk Hotel.

Thursday 3 April 2014

A misty, Mediterranean & Mealy afternoon

Having spent most of the morning working and watching the temperature rising it was mildly annoying to wait so long in Lynn for the bank to sort out a foreign transfer and a few cheques!! I drove back to Hunny with the temp reading 17c! 

So it was even more annoying that by the time I got to Holme around 2.45pm it was cool, grey and distinctly misty, with a very fresh easterly breeze!

I had cycled down carrying my camera gear thinking there might be some insects to photograph, that wasn't going to work. On arrival I checked the horse paddocks off the Beach Rd ( always do!), 20 Fieldfare were feeding in there, possibly the last I will see. (Away for 2 weeks as of Monday!). A young male Marsh harrier was putting up lots of Teal, Shoveler and 4 Avocet up off Redwell.

The weather cooled further and I settled for revisiting a few plants in the dunes, the nice soft "wow" call of a Mediterranean Gull  caught my attention and on looking up 2 crisp adults flew past me, joining the Black-headed Gulls out on the freshwater pools. Further scanning of the grazing marsh produced 15 Pink-feet & c200 Brent Geese.

From the NWT hide there was 2 Ruff and 2 Black-tailed Godwit, although later c40 Black-tailed Godwit flew over.

I had a walk around the Firs and the NOA, and as I was coming away I had 4 "Redpolls" flying around, 2 eventually settled and both were apparently Mealy's, overall very pale, with pale grey ground colour to the mantle, pale whitish rumps, clean white breasts and under tail coverts, with just 1-2 streaks on u/c. I stalked the lower one and eventually got a record shot (see below) of one of the Mealy (Common) Redpoll.

A nice little haul of birds for a quick saunter round!








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