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Saturday 26th December 2020

Southbound 16 Red-throated Diver, 8 Black-headed Gull, 7 Teal, 4 Shelduck, Brent & Long-tailed Duck with northbound 35 Red-throated Diver, 18 Common Scoter, 2 Brent & 2 Gannet plus 12 Kitts & 7 Gannet behind shipping. 104 Cormorants flew out fishing from inland with a little later on 3,425 flying into the feeding grounds from the north

Friday 25th December 2020


Southbound 32 Red-throated Diver, 10 Shelduck, Goosander & Common Scoter with northbound 15 Red-throats, 4 Common Scoter & Brent Goose plus at least 5 Red-throats & Guillemot offshore. Single Woodcock on site signifies colder weather elsewhere as species like this move to the milder coastal regions.

Thursday 24th December 2020

A Manx Shearwater heading south was most unexpected as we only have a grand total of 85 birds logged on 53 dates over 38 years with all previous records in the period 18th April to 3rd November and no winter records al all at a time of the year when this individual should have been somewhere off the coast of Brazil ! Apart from this wayward creature also southbound 7 Red-throated Diver, 4 Common Scoter, Brent Goose & Marsh Harrier with northbound 17 Common Scoter, Brent & Red-throat. 2,500 Cormorant came in from the north to the feeding grounds offshore. 7 Ringos were on the beach early on but soon shifted by humans.

Wednesday 23rd December 2020

More rain & poor visibility made for a grim morning enlivened by the mince pies. Amongst a paltry set of observations southbound 2 Golden Plover & Teal with northbound 15 Common Scoter. The Greater spotty Woody Woodpecker paid another visit.

Whilst waiting for the kettle to boil a quick sortie into the bowls of the building produced the first site record of Bloxworth Snout which I understand is only the third for Suffolk. Formally a rare immigrant to our shores it has colonised the south coast of Britain and, as the climate changes, will presumably invade the county.

Tuesday 22nd December 2020


2 Mipit south are today's migrants. Offshore southbound 10 Brent, 4 Brent & 3 Red-throated Diver with northbound 10 Brent, 9 Common Scoter, 2 Red-throats & Mallard. 2,750 Cormorants came in from the north to the feeding grounds. Rock Pipit still on the point, Song Thrush singing at the north end & the regular Great-spotted Wood paid a visit late morning.

Monday 21st December 2020


Yesterday's Iceland in glorious sunshine.

Grim this morning for the winter solstice with the wind & rain making the shortest day of the year feel even gloomier than it should be. Oh well - it's all uphill from here onwards. Awful viewing conditions with a Shag heading overhead and into the river the only sighting worth a mention.

MOTUS Detection


The Motus tower at Landguard has noted a Starling. Originally fitted with a nanotag at Dan Helder in the Netherlands on 8th November this bird has many detections after being tagged. It was recorded by six different Dutch towers on 6th December before being detected by the Landguard tower on the same date. The tag was fitted by Wageningen University & Research who will have exact timings of how long the bird took to cross the North Sea and directions of the various detections which will be available in due course. For more information on Automated Radio Telemetry please go to motus.org 

Sunday 20th December 2020

Southbound 11 Red-throated Diver, Goldeneye, Great-crested Grebe, Oyk & Red-breasted Merganser with northbound 6 Brent, 5 Red-throats & Red-breasted Merganser plus 2,640 Cormorant that came in from the north to the feeding grounds a long way out. Two groups of Starling totalling 18 birds went south. Rock Pipit is still at the point & a Great-crested Grebe was in the river. Afternoon update - second-winter Iceland Gull just inside dock fence at bottom of View Point Road flew over the car park into the river.