A full day to myself today,out on the patch,resulted in no major rares like on my last visit,but still today was as rewarding as ever,with some nice sightings logged,the following is what i recorded over the 9 hours i was on site.
I started as always,at my parking place at Winter's Pond,just as it was trying to get light,i say trying as it was wall to wall thick cloud cover.
A quick scan of the pit revealed a single adult Whooper Swan,which was a nice start i thought and some good numbers of wildfowl present included a drake Pintail,49 Gadwall,22 Tufted Duck,116 Mallard,8 Shoveler and 35 Teal.
As i walked down the hedgerow to the Humber floodbank,a decent amount of thrushes were encountered which included 39 Blackbird,51 Redwing and at least 150 Fieldfare.
When i reached the floodbank i decided to spend an hour or so watching the river,with highlights including a Peregrine chasing a Lapwing over the bank and river before heading over to the north bank to Paul Holme Strays flushing a huge cloud of waders in it's path and a Cream crown Marsh Harrier following in the same direction.The only other sighting of note was a whopping bull Grey Seal seen at fairly close range adding some welcome variety.
The next section of my visit between Winter's and the Skitter saw 98 Linnet in two flocks of 30 and 68 being logged and 3 Stonechat,a female and a pair on the mitigation site.Two Roe Deer along here also added to the days mammal sightings.
Some serious effort walking all the hedgerows and the freshwater pools at the Skitter revealed no surprises,but another pair of Stonechat and the 3 Water Pipits were still around.A drop in the number of Rock Pipits to 2 after the previous visits 7 was expected.Other notable counts included 24 Reed Bunting,20 Yellowhammer,35 Chaffinch and 24 Blackbird being seen with 3 Song Thrush and 5 of each of both Fieldfare and Redwing also.
After the knackering walk around the Skitter pools,it was nice to get back on the flat floodbank and a spluttering female Cetti's at Ruins pond kept the interest going.
As i neared Dawson City,i could see a decent sized flock of Pinks in the distance using their usual winter feeding pasture and i hoped they would still be present for my walk from the Haven back to the Skitter later.
A scan of the good numbers of Waders off Dawson saw a nice flock of 24 Grey Plover being noted with 320 Dunlin,11 Black-tailed and 3 Bar-tailed Godwit also being added to the days sightings.
As i reached the pasture i had viewed from Dawson earlier,there was a good sized flock of Pinks present,approx. 2000 and i noticed a neck collared bird in amongst them which was interesting and i knew were to send the records at the WWT.
Further along East Marsh Road a single Little Egret was watched feeding alongside a large ditch,probably the bird i had seen earlier.
The final section of my visit along the sea wall saw some great views of 4 Short-eared Owl as they hunted the rough grass pasture in the mitigation site,what a nice end to the days sightings i thought.
Well after a good 11.5 miles walked,i was relieved to get back to the car and made my journey back home to Barnetby after another great day out local patching.
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| Looking Along The Humber Floodbank Towards Hull Docks In The Distance. |
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| Ruins Pond Between East Halton Skitter And Dawson City. |
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| Grey Plover On The Sandbank Off Dawson City. |
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| Autumnal Colours On The Rookery Along East Marsh Road. |
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| Pink-footed Geese,Goxhill Marsh. |
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| Neck Collared Pink-feet XVX and XVH Which Are A Mated Pair,With What May Be Their Juveniles To The Left Of Them. |
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| The Humber Floodbank At East Halton Skitter. |
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| Part Of The Mitigation Site At East Halton Skitter. |
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| Doe Roe Deer Watching Some Dog Walkers Nearby. |
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| Short-eared Owl,East Halton Skitter. |
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| Information Kindly Received From Kane Brides At The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust On The Two Neck Collared Pink-footed Geese. |
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