Christmas Eve

Another Christmas Eve, and another hike along the Stour and Orwell. It was hard going this year, with a strong south-westerly making scoping difficult, and the Stour very choppy. However, I located a Great Northern Diver between Stutton Ness and RHS, drifting upriver; presumably one of the birds that was on the Strand yesterday, given that only 2 were reported from there today. 

Grainy phonescoped GND

I recorded a total of 1305 Brent Geese; the bulk of these, 1050, were on Shotley Marshes. No Black Brants this year, and just 11 juveniles across all thirteen hundred birds - a worryingly low proportion!

Three of eleven juv Brents

Other stuff included a total of 10 Rock Pipits, an adult Med Gull at Shotley Marina, 2 each of Marsh Harrier and Buzzard, 4 Bar-wits in Erwarton Bay, and 29 Pintail in Holbrook Creek. Wader numbers included the usual stuff, but numbers seemed a bit low, and certainly the numbers of seaduck and grebes on the Stour were well down from usual, with just a handful of Goldeneye, two small groups of Mergs (totalling 11 birds) and few Great Crested Grebes (I couldn't see any Slavs, but conditions didn't help). I guess the mild weather hasn't helped on this front.

Med Gulls, the best of all the gulls

So, a bit disappointing when compared to recent years, but still fun. 

Dusk over Felixstowe