Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: Visiting Terns,Icelandic Black-tails & Mediterranean Visitor.....Local Patching,26th & 29th July and 5th August 2021.

Friday 6 August 2021

Visiting Terns,Icelandic Black-tails & Mediterranean Visitor.....Local Patching,26th & 29th July and 5th August 2021.

Three productive and very enjoyable visits to the local patch,with 2 additions to the local patch year list putting me on 133 for the year.The following is what i recorded during the visits.

Monday 26th July

A cracking visit today started off in usual style at Winter's Pond,with a huge count of 18 Little Egret here at dawn.This is the largest number i have had on the site and later i had at least 1 more bird at East Halton Skitter,so 19 for the patch is unheard of.

Other species seen here included 2 lovely adult Common Tern,which showed nicely over the main lake.

At the skitter some prolonged watching certainly paid off with a series of good birds,the best of which was a single Sandwich Tern which flew out towards Killingholme and was new for the year.

As i walked,a Short-eared Owl flew up from the grassland,a bit of a surprise for the time of year to be fair.

Also seen here,were 10 Common Sand feeding in the outfall,a Green Sand on the pools,2 Whimbrel foraging along the shore and the lovely sight of 12 juvenile Bearded Tit feeding in the reedbed and sedges.

Thursday 29th July

A quieter visit than on the 26th today,but still productive none the less,with a 'New' Colour-ringed Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit seen on the car park grassland at Winter's Pond.

It had the combinations of red over black flag on the left leg and green over white on the right leg.This bird had been ringed as a first winter at Long Bank Marsh near Spurn on 17th February 2018 by the Humber Wader Ringing Group and has subsequently been seen at Titchwell RSPB,Brancaster & Holme in Norfolk,Mistley in Essex,Welwick in East Yorkshire,Sutton Gault in Cambridgeshire and also East Halton Skitter on my patch on 9th October 2020 by Wes Payne.

I observed the bird at approx. 5am today and unbelievably,it was seen later today at Titchwell RSPB in Norfolk at 2.30PM!.

This just goes to show how invaluable it is to ring and track these birds for conservation purposes.

The Skitter was again quite decent for waders today,with 9 Common Sandpiper and a Whimbrel being seen,with 147 Dunlin flying towards Killingholme to no doubt roost as high tide was approaching.

Friday 5th August

An early morning start at Winter's as usual today,saw the largest number of Icelandic Black-tails roosting/feeding on the grassland ive seen so far this autumn,with 336 birds present.

A look through them revealed 2 colour-ringed birds,1 a new one for the Humber ringed at Snettisham RSPB in Norfolk on 02.09.19. with the combinations of Green-Green on the left leg and Red over White on the right leg and has subsequently been seen at Holme & Cley NWT reserves throughout autumn 2019,then seen at Frieston Shore RSPB in Lincolnshire in November 2019.

Further sightings then came from Burnham Overy Staithe and Holkham in Norfolk in January 2020,Breydon Water in Norfolk in March 2020 and then a series of sightings in Holland during July and August 2020 before my sighting today.

Unbelievably the bird i had here on 26th of July was back after it's little trip to Norfolk,proving just how these birds move between breeding,feeding and wintering sites throughout europe and on the breeding grounds in Iceland.

Other birds species seen here included 10 Little Egret,the 2 Great-crested Grebes still,6 Little Grebe,2 Whimbrel which flew south west,19 Tufted Duck and the first decent number of Teal since the spring with 26 birds present.

On the Humber shore between Killingholme and the Skitter,a single Common Tern flew out south,49 Redshank,8 Ringed Plover and a further 7 Whimbrel were feeding along the tide edge and shoreline.

The Skitter provided some nice sighting's with 10 Common Sandpiper still present for about their 3rd week,a lovely juvenile Little-ringed Plover feeding around the dry areas of the outfall and a single Green Sandpiper,6 Snipe and 3 Bearded Tit around the pools.

Goxhill Marsh hosted the usual suspects,with 169 Curlew,131 Black-headed Gulls,25 Lesser black-backed Gulls,45 Herring Gulls and 3 Great black-backs.

Off here,3 Sandwich Terns flew out south towards Killingholme,2 adults and a juvenile.

A nice diversion away from the birds saw at least 5 Essex Skipper being seen along with Southern and Migrant Hawker Dragonflies.

On return back to Winter's,i found a cracking scallop patterned juvenile Med.Gull and it gave some cracking views on the grassland before promptly going to sleep in amongst the Black-tail flock.

Autumn migration is getting into it's swing now and hopefully i will be finding some nice birds again before long.