RXwildlife Sightings

On a lovely sunny day it really sounded like spring today with calling Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls and displaying Lapwing, Ringed Plover, Oystercatcher and……… the red listed Skylark. Listen here.

Tomorrow the combination of predicted high spring tide (4m) , low pressure (985mb) and strong winds (gale 9) may well result in some exciting coastal conditions. The tidal information is available on the Environment Agency website, the inshore waters forecast for North Foreland to Selsey Bill is available here and the old fashioned surface pressure maps here. With the heavy rainfall on already flooded land and the high tide preventing flood water out of the rivers, there is likely to be extensive flooding. If you can keep dry and warm there will be many photo opportunities and probably some exciting birds to be found.
The RX area escaped, but the French coast didn’t…)

In yesterday’s sunshine the waders on the shore were showing well, but they always provide an identification challenge. A small group of grey waders near the Mary Stanford Lifeboat House contained 3 species… largest, short-billed Grey Plover, medium sized longer-billed Knot and smallest, but longer billed Dunlin – most in this photo are Knot.

I found this recently dead Common Shrew this morning beside a footpath and put it in a life-like pose… in life they are too quick to photograph. Shrews are often found like this and it is a good means of identifying our 3 species - Common, Pigmy and Water (please let us know if you find a Water Shrew). Click here for more information.

Flocks of Skylarks were feeding on the saltmarsh where the plants were above the snow, but then another blizzard ended birdwatching!.

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This part of the country had its greatest snow fall of the winter (about 15cm) and blizzard conditions were experienced through the morning. At Pett Pools there was a large flock of Wigeon forced close to the road where the snow had blown off the grass.

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On Friday at Winchelsea Beach, in the shelter of some scrub and during a 10 minute period of warm sunshine there was a Small Tortoiseshell, 7 Spot Ladybird and a Honeybee…

I have just revisited this booklet and, despite its title, has many interesting articles - The Depositional and Landscape Histories of Dungeness Foreland and the Port of Rye
Click here to download.

No, not yet, it’s too early. But this declining species needs your help - the Maltese government is still considering opening what it calls a “limited spring hunting season” in 2010. PLEASE read this petition by clicking here.

I caught a snatch of a Radio 4 programme today called. Shingle Street - Dungeness is a place to listen and to watch. It is a place to watch new land being made by the sea’s shovelling of shingle; a place to watch the manufacture of power, a place to watch the migrating birds and moths find a transitory refuge. But watching is about far more than just looking, as writer and naturalist Paul Evans reveals in this powerful and haunting sound portrait of one of Britain’s most unsettling landscapes, the shingle flats of Dungeness. Listen again by clicking here or it’s broadcast again Wed 27 Jan 2010 21:00 BBC Radio 4.