Great White Garden Tick

Have actually got some bird news to blog about! And I'll start with this morning, I was down Black Hole Marsh early doors for a pre-breakfast bird binge...

A lovely Wood Sandpiper was without doubt the highlight, showing well in front of the platform at the far end.  There were plenty of others waders around too with the water levels looking perfect to draw in a good rare - hope it does too as it's about time I found something half decent!  

Also present 05:45-06:45 were; 8 Teal, 400+ Black-headed Gull, 2 Med Gull (ad and juv), 1 Common Gull, 8 Lapwing, 10 Dunlin, 15 Blackwits, 1 Greenshank, 3 Green Sands and 15 Common Sands.    

As expected for late July, I've seen a fair few Med Gulls, including an impressive nine on the Estuary late morning today (eight juvs and an adult). I also had four (an adult and three juvs) on the Estuary on Wednesday, and on Tuesday morning during a sea watch four more (two ads and two juvs) flew past west. With the ever increasing numbers I wonder how many others fly past the beach when no ones looking...

As well as the Meds, the Tuesday morning sea watch from Spot On (05:45-06:45) showed; 5 Mute Swan (out then east), 31 Canada Goose (all in from east, some flew in off and others continued west), 16 Common Scoter, 110 Manx Shearwaters (all blogging about feeding), 1 Redshank (out then west) and 1 Common Sandpiper. Sadly no big white birds....

Early on Thursday morning whilst Ian M was sea watching he had a Great White Egret fly in off just after 6am, which then lingered in the river valley.  My alarm was set for 06:50, and on seeing the texts jumped up and watched the valley from the house.  About 15 minutes later there it was, flying down river past the Black Hole Marsh area, it seemed to continue flying south too. My third Egret sp. on the house list!  About an hour and a bit later it was in west Dorset at West Bexington and then Abbotsbury - so as usual our little valley proves not big or attractive enough to hold a Great White for long.

I will keep this an insect-free post, but to pre-warn you, Wednesday night was an absolute mega moth night with 406 moths of 68 species in one trap at Mum and Dad's!  So more moth photos coming soon...