Local Patching At It's Finest!......Tuesday 7th October 2020.

A full day spent on the local patch covering all the area between Winter's Pond & Goxhill Haven resulted in one of my most productive visits of the year,the following is what i saw.

I started proceedings covering the Winter's area first,mainly logging the birds roosting or feeding on the main lake and grassland.Some impressive counts for here were made and included 63 Shoveler,100 Wigeon,1,011 greylags,9 Little Grebe,43 Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit and a decent group of Pinks flew west,numbering 1832 birds in two flocks of 1620 & 212.

A walk along the floodbank up past the grade 2 listed chimney saw a few nice birds being seen and included 3 Chiffchaff and a male Blackcap,with a late Painted Lady being noted also.

I then retraced my footsteps and headed along the mitigation site,seeing 2,then 4 and then 8 Stonechat all feeding along the same stubble field edge,a nice surprise and my biggest flock on the patch to date,but more was to come.

Other birds noted along here included a further 11 Shoveler,10 Reed Bunting,34 Teal,a female Marsh Harrier and a cracking adult Peregrine watched resting on an adjacent field nearby.

More Pink-feet were crossing from the east and heading west and included flocks of 30,140,222,138,84,138 & 82 giving me a respectable total of 2678 birds west.

A good look around the Skitter revealed more goodies and included a further 6 Stonechat,3 Bearded Tit,5 Chiffchaff,male Blackcap,12 Snipe and 11 Reed Bunting.

The area between the Skitter and Dawson City added a Water Rail and Little Grebe at Ruins Pond,with a further 3 Chiffchaff and 3 Goldcrest adding to the days tallies.

A watch from Dawson City attempting to shelter from the rain,incredibly brought another 10 Stonechat!,these birds were watched feeding along the bankside bushes and saltmarsh and made for an amazing total of 24 birds for the visit,by far the most i have recorded on the patch.

Other notable sightings in the Dawson area included 56 Black-tailed Godwit,Grey Plover,10 Bar-tailed Godwit,another Marsh Harrier,this time a juvenile and a Short-eared Owl which flew towards Goxhill Haven.

Another look at the Skitter on the return leg back to the car,saw 39 Avocet,22 Knot and 326 Black-tailed Godwit being seen.

A look for colour rings in amongst the Black-tails revealed 3 marked birds,one with a combination of white-black-yellow(left leg)& yellow-red-yellow(right leg) which had been ringed on the Axe Estuary in Devon on 28th February 2015 and had subsequently been seen in Northern Ireland on several occasions as well as Essex and also Devon,before not being seen since 22nd September 2017 until my sighting today.

The next bird had been ringed at Welwick Saltmarsh on the 6 November 2018 with a combination of red over a black flag(left leg) and green over lime(right leg),this bird had only been seen once subsequently before my sighting today,at Newton Marsh on the Ribble Estuary on the 9th March 2019.

The final bird had the combinations of 1 long white ring with black lines down it on the left leg and lime over red on the right leg,this bird has been ringed in Cork in Southern Ireland and I'm awaiting details on this bird.

After all the Black Wit shenanigans i carried on walking along Skitter Road back towards Winter's seeing 2 more Chiffchaff,2 Common Buzzards and a Jay.

The final stretch back to Winter's still had more birds to offer and included a pristine juvenile Whimbrel feeding on a stubble field,which gave some lovely scope views and obviously needs to get a move on to Africa,as its getting pretty late for this species now.

A final look on Winter's before leaving for home saw the rarest bird of the day and also a new for the year species,an adult female Scaup feeding with 9 Tufted Ducks.This was a superb record and a new species for the site putting me on 157 species for here,which is pretty good to be fair.

Also here were a flock of 9 Pintail which was great to see and a quick look on the mitigation site,revealed a Short-eared Owl hunting distantly.

What a cracking visit today and the patch year list is standing at 143 species now,can't wait until my next visit!.

Rain Storm Heading Towards Killingholme.

The Humber Floodbank Looking Towards Goxhill Haven.

Male Stonechat,One Of Ten Birds Near To Dawson City.

Five Of The Ten Stonechats Near Dawson City.

Winter's Pond.

Nosey Local.

Pinks Over The Mitigation Site.