Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: The Local Patch....Saturday 2nd March 2019.

Thursday 7 March 2019

The Local Patch....Saturday 2nd March 2019.

With the prospect of some great weather today,i headed over to the local patch to see what i could find and attempt to add some more species to the ever growing patch year list,the following is what i saw over the 6 or so hours on site.
I started as always at Winter's Pond,with a small increase in Little Grebe's noted,at 7 birds and 2 Canada Geese still present from my last visit,no doubt part of the same flock.Also present were 5 Pochard,which included 3 drakes and 2 females.
I decided to head down the side of the mitigation site first and it wasn't long before i saw the usual 4 Roe Deer as they stood browsing as i passed by.
Not a lot was noted on here today,apart from a Common Buzzard seen in an adjacent wood and i could hear a male Great-spotted Woodpecker drumming at Red House Wood.
It was still overcast from dawn and to be fair not many birds were singing,including the resident Skylarks from my last visit.
I then headed down towards the beck and inland towards Chapel Farm with a single Little Grebe and a pair of Teal along the beck and a singing male Treecreeper at Chapel Farm.
More of the same as i headed along East Marsh Road and again as on my last visit i was scolded by the Rooks as i passed by the Rookery,i just love their calls,a sure sign spring is on it's way.
As i neared Goxhill Haven,2 Common Buzzards were noted and at the Haven itself small numbers of Shelduck,Redshank and Teal were seen,the latter in pretty good numbers compared to previous years as noted all along the shore between here and Winter's.
As i walked along the flood bank towards Dawson City,at last i managed to find something new for the year...an Oystercatcher.These local birds move away from the upper estuary in the winter months,heading for the outer reaches and the nearby coast,but return around now for the breeding season,always nice to see and another harbinger of the warmer months to come.
Again,as earlier,very little was seen between Dawson and the Skitter,with 3 Common Buzzard,a singing Cetti's Warbler,4 Brown Hare and my first Comma of the year entered in the notebook,the latter a welcome sight and brightening the day for sure.
As you guessed by the butterfly sighting,it was glorious wall to wall sunshine and as i neared the Skitter for the second time today a singing male Redshank greeted me,just great to hear again.
The Skitter provided a few nice sightings which included 12 Redshank,31 Black-tailed Godwit,79 Teal and the best of the bunch a pair of Avocet.It would be really nice if the latter stopped to breed and it could well be a returning pair to the area,as i had a pair here around the same time last year.
Well today i walked 9.5 miles for not much return sightings wise,but it was just great to get out and about in some nice weather again,i love this hobby!.