Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: Local Patching Update.....1st,3rd & 4th August 2019.

Monday 12 August 2019

Local Patching Update.....1st,3rd & 4th August 2019.

Another summary of sightings from my local patch at East Halton/Goxhill and after a couple of barren months,some more year list additions,pushing my patch watch year list closer to last years score of 140 species.

1st August

Today's visit started well at Winter's Pond,with a Green Woodpecker calling on 4 occasions around the pine plantation and old tilery buildings,i never did see the little buggar,but they all count!.This incredibly,was a new personal species for my patch and puts my personal list on 201 species.

Other highlights at Winter's consisted of singles of Green & Common Sandpipers and 178 Black-tailed Godwit were on the grassland near the car park.

The tide was well up on today's visit and several scans of the outgoing tide revealed a single Harbour Porpoise and a Grey Seal,the former,the first i have seen for a good while along here.

Between Winter's and the Skitter,13 Common Sandpipers,65 Dunlin and 5 Ringos were the highlights.

As has been par for the course lately,the Skitter was alive with birds and my second year tick of the day was found here,a spanking juvenile Med.Gull which showed reasonably with Black-headed Gulls in the haven.

After hearing the 'Yip yip,yip' of a Wood Sandpiper earlier,it was nice to find 2 Juv's on the fresh water pools,the second record for the patch for the year.I guess i was hoping to bump into some locally after,huge numbers of the species had turned up along the east coast of the UK.

Other highlights around the Skitter included a further 11 Common Sandpiper,the usual 4 Avocet,11 Little Egret and a Whimbrel.

3rd August

On today's visit,sightings consisted basically of the same species as on the 1st,with Green and Common Sandpipers on Winter's,but no sign of the Green Woodpecker today,but a new Med.Gull was found roosting at high tide on the old sea plane jetty towards Killingholme Haven.This bird was a 2nd calendar year(1st summer) and was pretty scruffy it has to be said,as are most gulls at this time of year.

Between Winter's and the Skitter,6 Common Sandpiper,1 Greenshank,1 Whimbrel and the juvenile Med.Gull from the 1st were seen and a juv. Marsh Harrier hunted the mitigation site.

At the Skitter,47 Redshank,the regular 4 Avocet,12 Common Sands,2 Whimbrel,73 Black-headed Gull and the 2 juvenile Wood Sandpipers were present,with 310 Black-tailed Godwit present also.

On today's visit also,some decent numbers of Butterflies were seen with 12 species recorded and some good numbers of Orthoptera with hundreds of Roesel's-bush Cricket,Short-winged Conehead and Lesser-marsh Grasshoppers seen and heard.

4th August

An organised meet up with Jon today,to carry out his WEBS count between Winter's and Goxhill Haven,saw some great birds being seen again.

Nothing of note on Winter's to start,apart from a Little Egret saw us walking the usual route along the Humber bank towards the Skitter.This section provided us with a count of 13 Common Sands and a single Greenshank flew onto the mitigation site.

At the Skitter,10 Common Sands were seen in and around the haven,but the Skitter pools really provided some nice sightings today,with the 2 juv.Wood Sands still present and also an additional bird which flew north along the estuary,7 Little Egret,2 Greenshank,additional to the earlier bird and 2 immature Spoonbill which flew off towards Killingholme.The latter,are only the second personal record for myself along here after the bird i saw back in April of this year.

Between the Skitter and Dawson City,it was fairly quiet,with the only notables going to a good sized flock of 210 Curlew and 2 juvenile Bearded Tit,but Dawson came up trumps with a Red Kite watched flying over the fields,before it thermalled high up and drifted slowly over the Humber into Yorkshire.

On the return leg back towards Winter's,a cracking juvenile Cuckoo and Green Sand were seen on the mitigation site.

Non bird sightings today included a couple of new sightings for the patch in the form of my first Southern Hawker and Essex Skipper,both were seen along a section of the Humber bank near Dawson City.

Some nice mammal sightings today,saw 3 Brown Hare and 2 Roe Deer noted between the Skitter and Dawson and 2 Roe Deer fawns near Winter's on the mitigation site.