A good all the way round walk of just over four miles certainly tired Monty out, and my knees felt it as well.
The new camera lens worked excellently and gave me as good detail at long distance as I think I could have hoped for. I tried to do a count of some of the waterbirds, and got good numbers of coot, tufted, mallard, teal, shoveller and some pintail duck, and a good group of greylag geeses, together with lapwing and godwits, at least some of which (probably all) were black-tailed. although the RSPB website claims high numbers of Dunlin can be seen at the reserve I have only seen the occasional handful.
On the far side of the radar pool, a gull was beating up the coots on the water, and then I got a long-distance snap of it as it wheeled away:
It is a Common Gull, but I am pretty sure it is a second winter bird, because of the dark brown patches at the front and back of the upper wing just to the inside of the black wing tip patches, and also the reduced white mirrors at the very tips of the wings.
Other gulls were wheeling around and they might also have been common gulls at a guess, young ones mainly. I got one shot at the precise moment that an adult wheeled close to the surface of the water, its wingtip apparently only an inch or two from cutting into the surface:
I missed most of the ships coming in and out of the Thames but here is a shot of the relatively small dredger "Marieke" coming up river across the Marsh, and then another shot, closer to.
As we went around the Mead wall I shouted at Monty rolling in some muck by the side of the path and thereby put up a smallish dark wader with a very distinct white rump. According to the sightings board, Green Sandpipers have been around for several weeks, so it was probably a Green Sandpiper, Tringa ochropus, my first ever properly identified - However I am now quite certain that I had misidentified the two waders I saw in the autumn which I had called Curlew Sandpipers on the basis of their white rumps alone - in my ignorance - they were almost certainly my first Green Sandpipers. So what made me think the bird today was definitely a Green Sandpiper on the spot this time? It was the very dark colouring to the upperparts, the very distinct white rump, the sandpiper-like look to the bird in flight, the sandpiper call just like the Green Sandpiper on Xeno-Canto (a three note whistle), and of course the fact that the Sightings Board predicted that Green Sandpiper was there!
This is from the Itchen birds website (I hope they don't mind!
The Green Sandpiper actually nests in old nests of other species of birds, such as a Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) or a woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) or a squirrel (Sciurus) drey in trees (!), or on stumps or mounds where trees are unavailable. Separate nesting and feeding territories are thought to be held. little extra nesting material will be added to the existing structure, although some may be re-arranged. This nesting style is rather like the related Solitary Sandpiper in North America and the two together are thought to be quite close to the ancestral Tringa type.
The Green Sandpiper lays 2–4 cream with brown or purplish blotches eggs in a clutch, which take about three weeks to hatch. Incubation is by both parents, starting with the last egg, and hatching is synchronous. The young are precocial and nidifugous.
The species is generally said to be one of the darkest on the upper-side in its group, and in non-breeding plumage, there are none of the myriad small light spots that grace the breeding plumage. Although the upperparts are therefore darker, in contrast the underparts are whiter at this time of the year.
The birds breed in areas such as the Sweden and Finland. The range is quite wide, and extends through the Sub-Artic region North to the Low Artic, and through the Boreal region South to the Temperate, with a montane outlier in Transcaucasia. Females tend to leave the breeding grounds first, perhaps before the young are fledged, followed later by the juveniles and the males.
They winter in Western Europe (a few), around the Mediterranean, in Africa or across Asia, to avoid the snow and ice that would cause them to starve on their breeding grounds. In Britain most over-wintering birds are found in Southern Britain.
Feeding is relatively secretive, regularly entering ditches, stream beds and enclosed ponds, shunning wide horizons and open coastal habitats. In such habitats the only waders likely to be seen are Snipe, Common Sandpiper and Green Sandpiper. The only one of these with a bright white rump is the Green Sandpiper. Food is small invertebrate items picked off the mud (it isn't a great "prober") as the bird works steadily around the edges of its chosen pond. The picture below shows the somewhat sheltered ditch that my particular bird was seen at - doesn't seem to exactly fit.
As the light faded, I tried to see the gulls behind a large ship going out, but failed to get much detail. Possibilities of a couple in the crowd, where the dark wings and whitish tail were caught by the sun, included Black-Backed Gulls, either Lesser or Greater. Others could have been Herring Gulls.
As I looked, a large cloud of waders (at least 150) flew rapidly upriver, too fast and small for curlews. The beaks I thought looked relatively small, so my best guess would be Grey or Golden Plovers, but they could have been a lot of other things as well.
The new camera lens worked excellently and gave me as good detail at long distance as I think I could have hoped for. I tried to do a count of some of the waterbirds, and got good numbers of coot, tufted, mallard, teal, shoveller and some pintail duck, and a good group of greylag geeses, together with lapwing and godwits, at least some of which (probably all) were black-tailed. although the RSPB website claims high numbers of Dunlin can be seen at the reserve I have only seen the occasional handful.
On the far side of the radar pool, a gull was beating up the coots on the water, and then I got a long-distance snap of it as it wheeled away:
Other gulls were wheeling around and they might also have been common gulls at a guess, young ones mainly. I got one shot at the precise moment that an adult wheeled close to the surface of the water, its wingtip apparently only an inch or two from cutting into the surface:
This is from the Itchen birds website (I hope they don't mind!
The Green Sandpiper lays 2–4 cream with brown or purplish blotches eggs in a clutch, which take about three weeks to hatch. Incubation is by both parents, starting with the last egg, and hatching is synchronous. The young are precocial and nidifugous.
The species is generally said to be one of the darkest on the upper-side in its group, and in non-breeding plumage, there are none of the myriad small light spots that grace the breeding plumage. Although the upperparts are therefore darker, in contrast the underparts are whiter at this time of the year.
The birds breed in areas such as the Sweden and Finland. The range is quite wide, and extends through the Sub-Artic region North to the Low Artic, and through the Boreal region South to the Temperate, with a montane outlier in Transcaucasia. Females tend to leave the breeding grounds first, perhaps before the young are fledged, followed later by the juveniles and the males.
They winter in Western Europe (a few), around the Mediterranean, in Africa or across Asia, to avoid the snow and ice that would cause them to starve on their breeding grounds. In Britain most over-wintering birds are found in Southern Britain.
Feeding is relatively secretive, regularly entering ditches, stream beds and enclosed ponds, shunning wide horizons and open coastal habitats. In such habitats the only waders likely to be seen are Snipe, Common Sandpiper and Green Sandpiper. The only one of these with a bright white rump is the Green Sandpiper. Food is small invertebrate items picked off the mud (it isn't a great "prober") as the bird works steadily around the edges of its chosen pond. The picture below shows the somewhat sheltered ditch that my particular bird was seen at - doesn't seem to exactly fit.
As I looked, a large cloud of waders (at least 150) flew rapidly upriver, too fast and small for curlews. The beaks I thought looked relatively small, so my best guess would be Grey or Golden Plovers, but they could have been a lot of other things as well.
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