December 2009

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December brings shorter daylight hours and some wintry weather but also the opportunity on bright days of some rewarding birdwatching along the coast and in estuaries and at reservoirs and lakes.

Offshore at Walton Naze, Clacton and St Osyth there are often sea duck including scoters, velvet scoters and eiders and the possibility of red-throated divers. Gales often affect oceanic birds such as little auks occasionally causing spectacular "wrecks" when the tiny birds are driven inland and found exhausted and hungry with quite a few fatalities.

There are big flocks of wading birds and wildfowl and my favourite winter watchpoint is Essex Wildlife Trusts Tollesbury Wick reserve where you are not only guaranteed spectacular packs of golden plovers, lapwings, wigeon, brent geese and wintering avocets but also red-breasted mergansers and diving ducks in the channels and estuary mouth. It's also a raptor "hot-spot" with regular sightings of marsh harriers, merlins or short-eared owls and sometimes a peregrine or hen harrier.

Given the right state of the tide there's no finer place to see waders, duck and swans than Mistley. From the comfort of your car you can be close on the roadside to a myriad of black-tailed godwits, knot, redshanks, grey plovers, golden plovers, ringed plovers and oystercatchers with always a good number of pintails, goldeneye and other ducks. Then there's the great winter assembly of mute swans and nowadays some Australian alien black swans. It’s amusing, too, to see a flock of turnstones racing along the roadside grassland in search of food among the waddling swans.

It's worth having a look on the beaches, shingles and sea walls at Cudmore Grove, East Mersea, Colne Point, Walton and Brightlingsea for little flocks of snow buntings which winter with us from their far north breeding areas. Sometimes, too, there may be a few shore larks from the northern tundras and moors. Those of us who supported Colchester Natural History Society's visit to Stutton on the Suffolk side of the Stour on November 15 were rewarded with marvellous close views of a lone shorelark on the beach.

A special wader which spends the winter months along sea walls, tidelines and jetties and groynes is the purple sandpiper. In recent years this visitor from northern Europe has become much scarcer. A few years ago I used to see little flocks of this dumpy dark little wader foraging for food among the sea weed and bladder wrack on sea walls and groynes between Holland Haven and Frinton but I haven't been lucky for several winters though some have been seen at Walton, Dovercourt and Brightlingsea.

The colder weather will bring lots of birds to garden feeders and, as well as the usual parade of titmice, finches, robins and blackbirds, some are lucky enough to have visits from great-spotted woodpeckers feeding on peanuts. Last winter we had a male blackcap coming to our garden feeders for nearly three months and in the past few weeks we've had welcome regular visits from a flock of long-tailed tits. In winter there are mixed flocks of tits in woods and gardens sometimes accompanied by tree creepers and goldcrests.

If you know where there are alder trees and groups of silver birches keep a lookout for flocks of siskins and redpolls. In the past decade or so redpolls have become scarce as nesters in Essex but we do see some in winter feeding on alder and birch seeds and also on the seed in larch cones.

One finch which used to spend the winter months in coastal Essex has become a rarity in recent years. The twite, a relative of the linnet,
which breeds on northern moorland, was a regular visitor to East Mersea, Walton, Colne Point and Tollesbury, feeding on seeds of marsh, sea wall and beach plants, but is now rarely seen. The best place to be sure of seeing some is on the north Norfolk coast at Holkham, Salthouse and Cley where they are often in company of shore larks and snow buntings.

STOP PRESS

A small flock of twite was at East Mersea in the last few days of November.

At Abberton Reservoir a spotted sandpiper, a rare vagrant wader from North America, was present in the last week of November.

Black-tailed godwits are wintering wading birds from Iceland.

Great-spotted woodpeckers visit garden peanut feeders in winter.

Shorelarks are winter visitors from far north to beaches and shingle banks.

Flocks of Scoter (sea ducks) are often off Walton Naze and Clacton diving for Shellfish.

Redpoll feed on alder and birch seeds with siskins.

Keep a look-out for purple sandpipers along sea walls and groynes.

Goldcrests are sometimes seen in gardens but usually with flocks of tits.

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