Offshore southbound 14 Brent, 6 Common Gull, 6 Kitts, 2 Shelduck, Shoveler & only the third Goldeneye record this year with northbound 5 Common Scoter & 5 Red-throated Diver. No Cormorants went out but 2,080 came in from the north well out to feed around the sandbars. Rock Pipit was on the point and a Turnstone flew over the reserve.
Ringing: 1 Sparrowhawk.
Blackbird ringed Greifswalder Oie, Ostorpommern, Mecklenberg-vorpormern, Germany 16th March 2017 retrapped 879 km away at Landguard 29th November 2020. The locality is an uninhabited island in the Baltic part of the former GDR. Presumably this is a bird originating from further east ringed on spring passage then caught here in late autumn.
34 Kitts following a wind turbine boat coming in plus 25 south is easily the highest count of the winter so far. Also southbound 74 Great Black-backed Gull, 11 Brent, 3 Red-throated Diver, 3 Velvet Scoter, Gannet & Wigeon with northbound 11 Red-throats, 9 Common Scoter & 2 Brent. 1,560 Cormorant came in from the north a long way out heading for the feeding grounds with a mere 3 heading out to sea from inland over here. On the reserve a single Turnstone plus a flock of 60 Starling over towards the View Point car park notable for recent times.
Southbound 107 Brent, 13 Common Gull, 7 Wigeon, 1 Common Scoter & 1 Guillemot with northbound 18 Brent, 14 Red-throated Diver & 2 Teal. 16 Kitts were feeding offshore.
14 Linnet south is getting late in the season to be still migrating with no other migrants noted. Offshore southbound 13 Brent, 9 Common Scoter, 3 Wigeon, 2 Oyk & Red-throated Diver with northbound 6 Red-throats.
A Great-northern Diver flew north just offshore, female Eider is still in the river & a return visit by a Great Spotted Woodpecker are this mornings notable sightings. Down to just 91 Cormorants, next to none offshore movements & a walk around the reserve basically confirmed that there is nothing of even marginal note out there.
With very few Cormorants seen in recent days it was good to see 540 head out fishing 0735 hrs then between 0805 & 0830 hrs several large flocks came in from the north heading to the sandbar plus some smaller groups close inshore heading south bringing numbers up to over 2,600 so difficult to know what's going on. It may be linked to legal/illegal culling/disturbance at the roost site inland forcing them to go elsewhere but, as we know, Cormorants are well used to altering their behaviour in response to human activities but then revert to old habits in response to fish stocks. Whilst watching Cormorants also offshore southbound 5 Wigeon & 4 Common Scoter with northbound 2 Brent, Tundra Bean Goose & Guillemot. Finally the female Eider is still crabbing along the river having no difficulty finding victims.