St. Marys Island & Holywell

Water Pipit

St Marys beach

Sanderling in flight

St Marys beach

Sanderling feeding

St Marys beach

Curlew wading

St Marys beach  

Golden Plover

aerial show   

male & female Teal

St. Marys wetland

Juvenile Blackbird

Holywell Pond

I'm slowly getting the hang of this blogging lark and i am managing to download some of my other cameras images. Tues and today i went down to St. Marys Island in order to have a look at the Water Pipit. Thanks to Brian Robson who i had bumped into for the first time at Killy. Lake previously, i managed to locate the bird immediately. I spent the whole of my time there on Tues. in the Water Pipits vicinity at the end of the prom but each time it came within decent range a nice dog and walker would disturb it. ( They've got to shit somewhere i suppose) While i'm on the subject, can anyone understand the mentality of those twits (sorry, i spelled that wrong) that hang their dogs excrement in neatly parceled plastic bags in trees. Bustards ( oops another spelling mistake). I enjoyed watching it and every time it returned back to its favourite area it would announce its arrival. Very vocal. I didn't manage any decent images so i decided to return today.

This time the weather was a lot brighter but very blustery. I decided to call into Holywell Pond on the way down from Segedunum and on the path in at the back of the school was greeted by this lovely juvenile Blackbird feeding in the trees. I carried on towards the public hide meeting Davy Tee on the way, who told me not to bother as there was nothing on the water at that end of the pond and that it was all congregated up beside the members hide. About turn and sure enough there was quite a number of birds outside the hide. All the usual suspects you would expect but Davy pointed out that there were 2 Common Gulls towards the middle of the water. The light was nice and took some shots of a few Pochard that were diving and fishing and as they came up the water was glistening on them but they turned out to be too distant. After a smashing couple of hours headed down to the coast. Looked into the wetland after parking up where there were more than the usual smattering of ducks. Down to the prom. overlooking the rocks where the tide was about halfway in. The birds were quite distant, but there was a large number of waders of all varieties. Of note about

30 Curlew but what caught the eye was the large gathering of Golden Plover. I often wonder who does this, but proceeded to try and count them. 1, 2 , 3  blah, blah etc etc .......there was between 1100-1200. After a while a number of them tried to impersonate a Starling aerial display...........7/10   not bad but not up to Starling standard. Moved to the end of the prom and down to the beach whereupon the Water Pipit took one look and buggered off., I took it personally but immediately a Golden Retriever ran over to the seaweed pile where it had been. The same comings and goings as yesterday as the dog walkers passed by so i took consolation with the Ring Plovers, Turnstones and my personal favourites the Sanderlings as they all combed the waters edge. I will call down again soon if the Water Pipit stays but this time will have a tour around.......i might spot a Snow Bunting.