Saturday 29th December 2012

Sea watching produced 58 Kitts, 47 Brents, 10 Teal, 5 Shelduck & 2 Mallard south. A total of 40 Waxwing went south in three groups during the morning. Unfortunately whilst litter picking this morning some kind soul decided to help themselves to the bag of bin bags, gloves, loops & sticks that we leave out for people to pick rubbish with. It never ceases to amaze me what people will steal these days if you leave it unguarded.

Friday 28th December 2012

Bit more of interest offshore this morning. 37 Wigeon, 20 Red-throated Divers, 15 Kitts, 12 Common Scoter, 11 Shelduck, Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merg & an adult Little Gull south, 7 Brents north plus 25 Kitts following ships & several Red-throats feeding offshore. Not a lot else but considering it hasn't stopped raining long then little else done but sea watching.

XMAS LITTER PICK

Litter pick this Saturday 29th December 0930hrs start. Usual arrangements. All welcome. Further info on the events page of www.lbo.org.uk

Thursday 27th December 2012

Bucketing down - again ! 40 mins starring out produced a grand total of 4 Brents, 4 Red-throats south & 5 Kitts following a ship. When the weather conditions are mild & wet then i am sure you will find reading this blog as boring as i find writing it when there is nothing to write about. As we know we have a healthy number of readers, if you would like to make any comments about this blog over the last year(constructive criticism welcomed), then we would be grateful if you could e.mail any comments to landguardbo@yahoo.co.uk Many Thanks.

Wednesday 26th December 2012

43 Ringos & 4 Dunlin were attempting to roost on the beach - that is until the dog walkers got to work on them ! A Waxwing went south overhead at 0830hrs. Glorious sunny morning  so gave starring out to sea (& into the sun) a miss. The highlight of a walk round the reserve was 3 Meds & a Skylark. Normally by this late in the year the only Skylarks we get are associated with cold weather so i presume this one has been flooded out from somewhere rather than frozen out ?

Tuesday 25th December 2012

62 Ringos were attempting to roost on the beach on the incoming tide but some idiotic dog walkers showed them some festive cheer by throwing balls for the dogs & that was the end of that. We used to have regular high tide Ringo roost in the past but due to public pressure it's a bit of a rare event these days. The highlight of 40 mins sea watching were 2 Gannets reasonably close going south & one of the local Peregrines also in festive spirit taking some poor soul offshore before i had a chance to identify it's victim. To be honest i hadn't even seen it's prey before it honed in on it - but then again Peregrines do have better eye sight than us & i doubt they celebrate christmas !

Monday 24th December 2012

3 adult Little Gulls went south this am as did 8 Kitts, 4 Brent, 4 GP's, 3 Dunlin, Common Scoter, Merganser & Guillemot in an hours observation when the drizzle stopped. The usual handful of Red-throats & Cormorants also coming & going.

Sunday 23rd December 2012

A walk around the site produced 4 Mipits on the Butts & what is probably record water levels in the Butts pond. 2 Mipits also flew south overhead. 6 Ringos were on the beach. Offshore not a lot in limited time spent observing except that the gull numbers following shipping is finally increasing. One notable absentee in the gulls is the fact that the number of Common Gulls is very low - but with the amount of water in the fields inland then i suspect they are feasting on worms flooded out of their burrows.