Believe it or not i'm not actually employed by the National Trust to swan around looking at rarities. Blakeney Point may be best known in birding folklore for it's track record of vagrants and falls of common migrants, but for us, its most important as one of the key sites in Britain for breeding coastal birds, such as terns and waders. Many of these species nest in really awkward places, like beaches, where people like to have picnics and make sandcastles and do other things that normal non-birdy people do. So, the main reason we're here is to help visitors to enjoy the sight of these special birds, but without compromising their ability to breed successfully.
I'll be posting more about the fortunes of our residents throughout the summer, but here's a quick taster of what we have on site.
Arctic Tern
Little Tern
Oystercatcher
Ringed Plover
Of course, we do still keep an eye on any migrants. We regularly get flocks of tundrae Ringed Plover stopping off for a rest, much to the disgust of the resident birds who do their best to scare them off.
The local hiaticula birds are clearly paler than the migrants, something to do with being more bleached from moulting earlier i'm told.
We also get plenty of Dunlins on stopover, in a bewildering variety of plumage and structure. Now I have some free time on my hands as exams and associated revision are over, I thought I would take a closer look. I soon realised how little I know about Dunlin races, so have started reading up a bit. I reckon the adult bird here is an arctica, and i guess that there's nothing that can be done with the 2cy bird. Hopefully there'll be plenty more to while away the hours with and improve my limited knowledge of them.
This 2cy Little Gull was a brief visitor to the Black-headed Gull colony.
You may have noticed the change on layout to the blog, there should be some more drastic improvements over the course of the summer, depending on the number of rainy days!
No comments:
Post a Comment