Green sandpiper
13 Aug 2015
The avocets now have two fully fledged young which are making short flights, so they will probably be gone from their breeding pool soon. Today they were joined there by a green sandpiper, a small wader on autumn passage, which flashes a distinctive white rump when it takes off, contrasting with the very dark back so that it looks rather like a house martin at first sight.
Jeremy
Bird ringing
02 Aug 2015
There will be a bird-ringing demonstration at the Secret Garden from 7.30am on Sunday 16 August. All welcome, including children. See birds in the hand instead of in the bush.
Jeremy
Kingfisher
02 Aug 2015
A kingfisher in the Sluice area today. It will probably be around now for the autumn and winter. You have to be quick to see it but it perches on the reeds and the rocks near the outfall. Probably easiest to pick up from its whistled calls.
Jeremy
From Anne Page
31 Jul 2015
Under our back door is a residential home: this summer on emerging for the morning swim I have found there: frogs, toads, lizards, snails. There have been two swarming flying ant infestations in the garden and house.
Wonderful sightings of the avocets nesting near the southerly sea wall. And one glorious swim with the Little Terns fishing about me. Last week, followed the hare running quite slowly along the landward verge from opposite the Alde House garden right up to Oxley Dairy’s entrance.
Anne Page
Bird song
22 Jul 2015
The curlew flock on the fields is now up to 60 birds. Most of the bird song in the reedbeds has now died down, though there are still a few sedge and reed warblers buzzing away and an occasional burst from a Cetti's warbler.
Jeremy
Curlews
13 Jul 2015
Another sign of autumn – about 20 curlews roosting in the mown fields at the back this afternoon.
The last time I heard the cuckoo was 6 July and most of the adults will have started their return journeys south by now, though we usually get one or two juveniles on the wires in August (they have to find their own way back, amazingly).
Jeremy
Marsh Harriers
25 Jun 2015
A pair of Marsh Harriers were seen by Erica and myself circling over the meadow between the road and the sea wall near Oxley Dairy.
Celia
Avocets
11 Jul 2015
The two pairs of avocets breeding on the pools just south of SS have brought off at least two young, which were scampering around this afternoon. Amazing that they pulled it off, what with dogs, foxes and human interference. And there may be more to come ...
Jeremy
Grasshopper warbler
06 Jul 2015
A grasshopper warbler was singing near the Sluice this morning. A strange hign-pitched whining noise, rather like a fishing reel paying out, which you could easily mistake for an insect call of some sort. I heard them near there early in the spring and it would be grand if this means they stayed to breed.
Jeremy
Common sandpiper
02 Jul 2015
There was a common sandpiper on the mud exposed at low tide on the shingle spit past the Beacons. I hardly dare say this, but it's the first sign of autumn, since this is a returning summer migrant heading south again after breeding in Scotland or the North of England. We can expect other returning waders in the next few weeks.
Jeremy
