A beautiful day of birds & blue skies!

Today was both interesting & beautiful! As you can see from Robin's previous post there was a significant movement of Lapwing, I noted around 1500, just a third of Robin's 4500 which doesn't surprise me as I was late out & not counting too carefully.

However, I also had other birds of note on the sea, 2 drake Goosander west & one on the sea, also 12 Goldeneye, plus Shoveler, Wigeon, Teal, Shelduck & Pintail all west. So the question is why the sudden movement of birds? The clue lies in the weather over Scandinavia, where until now mild weather has dominated. But today in SW Norway it was minus 13 & snowing from Stavanger across to Oslo. Surely the origin of the Lapwing & possibly causing a push of wildfowl, that thus far had stuck it out further north. It may be interesting to see what happens in the next few days!

My other highlights today were 2 Greenshank on the beach, plus c40 snow Buntings, by far my biggest count of Common Scoter with around 2500 offshore but as usual distant & c20 Kittiwake were following a fishing boat with a plethora of other gulls. 

Most incredible was watching a big fem Peregrine chase & dive 4 times after a Woodcock, eventually giving up after the Woodcock dived into cover! Consolation for dipping Bearded Tits on the Broadwater.

A new mammal was added today, a Muntjac was feeding out in the open in the dunes, just near the thick buckthorn in front of the Firs.

Last off there were 2 Short-eared Owls crossing paths near the entrance gate at 3PM, plus a Water Rail crossing the channels in Lavendar marsh &  2 Barn Owls hunting.
No year ticks for me today, but just great to be out.

An almost windless view for the first time in a while looking towards the Firs!