Sunday 25 January 2015

1 Turtle Dove, 14 Twite, 2 Med Gulls and a Tawny Owl in an Ivy clad tree

To totally misquote the "on the first day of Christmas" Christmas Carol I had a really good day today with first port of call the Turtle Dove along the N end of the bushes bordering hub bard's Loke, viewable from Dip Farm playing field standing by the southern most goal. The excellent Turtle Dove was perched in a short spindly tree just by some ivy clad trees. It stayed here for some 40 minutes before it flew back and south into gardens and out of sight. Next stop was Corton wood, we met James B who had heard Firecrest in the northern section, we didn't hear or see anything on this visit though. Next port of call was Breydon water, no sign of the Twite when I got there but joined by Paul & Jane F, the Ferguson luck rubbed off on me and we saw 8/9 small birds fly east past the bridge either Twite or Linnet. It was very disappointing to see that the area just west of Asda (not owned by Asda- so we can't blame Asda/Walmart) the site been completely tarmacked over and heavy machinery lies on what was a very vibrant Bee Orchid colony with over 300 plant strong (always a highlight in June and I visited the site every year to look at the plants, now sadly wiped out by the total ignorance and greed of the landowners, disgraceful. When joined by Keith D and Ginge, just west of the bridge we saw 14 excellent Twite, my first for over a year, fly into a dyke dip along the salt marsh and then jane spotted them first as they flew up and we watched them as they flew all the way over the estuary and onto the South wall/ Suffolk side, hurrah! Next stop, back at Links road and initial check of the Gulls failed to find any Meds, Paul & Jane arrived and we went into Warrenhouse wood by the south east path and up the concrete steps, just 30 feet in, looking out over the clearing to the west (before the Holm oak trees), the superb Tawny Owl was sitting right out in the open, in an ivy clad tree. It fell asleep but woke up when there was anybody going free and you would see the head effortlessly swivel round to look back at the cause of the disturbance. We were joined by Jon E just as some people got too close it hopped close into the canopy and wasn't fully out in the open. Back at Links road and joined by Andrew, I spotted first one adult Mediterranean Gull (with a silver ring) first seen around Andrew's car when he threw bread out and the Hungarian red-ringed bird adult Mediterranean Gull, a second bird, with the white letter/ numbers H1N1 on it!) was spotted by Andrew, It frequented the puddle area by the eastern end (no pun intended!), but didn't stay long enough to get its picture taken by me, sadly!

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