Friday, 6 January 2012

Low tide counting

Nice to be out birding with no howling gale for a change. Did some of my WEBS low tide counts today at Harlech Beach. On the beach and South Bank there weree 500+ Oystercatchers 344 Knot 38 Barwits, 9 Grey Plover a few Dunlin and sanderling and about 500 Gulls mostly Herring. On the quite choppy sea there were good numbers of Common Scoter - est. 1200 also a Great Northern, 50 Great Crested and 2 Slav grebes. 7 velvet scoters were quite close in and later had a pair even closer – only a few metres out dodging the surf. Managed a pic of the female but just frustratingly couldn’t get on the male.

Went on to Black Rocks but by then drizzle had set in and had 454 Oycs - very similar numbers to Harlech but fortunately duplication doesn’t matter with low tide counts 216 knot and the sea was invisible in the mist and rain.

1 comment:

  1. Nice - Harlech beach is always full of birds.

    Reckon it would produce the goods if it was patched regularly - God knows what passes through.

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