News

Saturday, 19 September 2009

Migrants on the Move

On Sunday the 13th September we held our annual autumn pilgrimage to the Promenade Park at Maldon to enjoy a bit of bird watching but with the opportunity to show birds to those hardy soles who spurned the bitter NW wind which was our lot for the day.

We were helped by RSPB staff from Old Hall and from Watt Tyler Park and had a battery of 12 telescopes trained on the unsuspecting birds.

In all a total of 38 different species were identified, including many migrants. Parties of swallows, house martins and a sand martin or two passed over us, with a solitary common tern reminding us of our "glorious" summer. Black tailed godwit, redshank and golden plover were back in good numbers and solitary sanderling and knot were identified.

Little egret are now so common that they may have become just a run of the mill bird, but we enjoyed the thrill of a party of 7 feeding together. The rarest bird seen was a yellow legged herring gull, just as we were packing up.

All in all, another enjoyable day, meeting many nice members of the public, but I do have to admit that it was nice to get out of that wind.
MLW