During brief stop on my way home tonight, I had an unusually prolonged view of a Bittern flying from the east pool to the west. There were also 2 Pintail, 24 Tufted Duck. Among the geese were the 5 Barnacles. The dead sheep remains, but no Ravens.
This morning a huge number of sea-birds were noted offshore, with large groups of divers, grebes and sea-ducks being seen first thing in Bulverhythe bay, they started to depart the area at around 07.30, so were probably using that area as a safe roosting or nocturnal feeding site.
Numbers counted included, 103 red T Divers, 8 Black T Divers, 1 Great northern Diver, 115 GC grebes, 4 Slav grebes, 1 Shag, 3 Scaup, 2 Eider, 1 lovely drake Smew, 81 Common scoter, and a Great skua harrassing the gull flocks.
Also seen were 92 Turnstone and 2 Purple sandpipers, 5 Mediterranean gulls including 2 superb adults made up for the lack of any yellow-legged gulls this month, as did hearing a dartford warbler singing on Galley hill.
Reported by Ian Standivan on the wildhastings egroup.
A couple of months ago I had to dismantle an old tern raft at Ternery Pool. Unfortunately whilst doing this, I found a Water Shrew had made a nest between the layers of polystyrene! Feeling rather guilty at destroying the water shrew’s home, I decided to make some alterations to a spare mink trapping raft, and placed it where the old tern raft use to be. Yesterday being near by and over the fence, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to investigate to see if it had any occupants….. I was delighted to find that the water shrew had remade its home in the new raft, but I was unable to get a picture of this resident, however photos of the raft, nest and food larder can be seen below.
Be careful if you leave your car by the roadside at Pett Level! A friend of mine was robbed there yesterday. These thieves are not casual - they drill out the locks.