A slight north-easterly breeze and an incoming tide has brought a steady stream of Black-headed Gulls up the Thames today with two Kittiwakes and an adult LIttle Gull in tow. The ringtail Hen Harrier is still around and was seen out hunting over the Target Pools and an Egyptian Goose flew down river a little while ago!
and the news just in...
From 28th February (today) to 6th March our troublesome toilets are having a refit and the waterless urinals will be replaced with more environmentally friendly (and less smelly) loos that use harvested rainwater, Needless to say there will be some disruption but we have provided some portaloos so we should be ok!.
Oh and one more thing... please keep your fingers crossed for us but hopefully the wind turbine will be back up by mid March!
me again. Slaty was seen again on Saturday and Priscille Preston managed some shots of this elusive Japanese gull on the previous Sunday.
You can see how big and heavy this gull is when standing next to this young Herring Gull. The big body, brown head shawl, slate grey back, huge white terial and secondary bar and really pink legs all point to this being the genuine artical...
and in this shot you can see that it is not far of off the size of Great Black Backed Gull which is the biggest in the world.
I wonder how much longer it will stay around for?
morning all
Basil Thornton got some fab shots last week on the reserve. Definitely worth an airing here!
You can tell that it is a female Green Woodpecker as the moustachial stripes are completely black and do not have the red centre that the males have.
Female Stonechat
male Stonechat
Since I last posted on the 17th things have been happening...
The Slaty Backed Gull reappeared ten minutes after that last post and showed well all afternoon out on Wennington Marsh. It did the same on Sunday and was again seen briefly on both Tuesday and Thursday so it is still around and visiting us when not sloping off to the tip at Pitsea!
Otherwise, still plenty of Lapwings and the Golden Plover flock is at about the hundred mark. The ringtail Hen Harrier is still around and both Short-eared and Barn Owls have been seen. The first Marsh Frog was out and about yesterday and Smooth Newts and bumble bees have both been seen so spring may be closer than you think. The first Swallow, Sand Martin and Wheatear have all been seen in the south west so keep your eyes open.
I was in the Baltic States over the weekend and lets just say that at -26c it was very unlikely that any early migrants would be touching down there. Infact finding any birds was a struggle but we eventually found the sea (it was ever so slightly frozen!) and its assorted wildfowl and White-tailed Eagles. Felt like summer coming back home on Tuesday!
H ;o)