Farlington Marshes Trip Report, Guided Birdwatching 29th Sept 2019

The weather forecast had not looked promising heading into Sunday’s guided birding trip at Farlington Marshes. As is often the case however it turned out nicer than predicted, and all of us managed to remain upright in the wind. This session was planned around the high spring tide that covered many of the regular roosting sites out in the harbour and moved more wading birds onto the reserve.

Before we got onto the reserve we saw that a boat had come adrift, a casualty of the recent tempestuous weather, it was sat in the windward corner of the harbour channel. A load of flotsam had also been blown into this corner, within this flotsam sat 3 mallards; they seemed quite indifferent to the conditions.

When entering through the reserve gate we were instantly greeted by some familiar ‘garden’ birds, the first of which we saw was a singing robin. Robins seemed to accompany us around most of the northern part of the reserve, this is after an obvious increase in their numbers at coastal sites such as this over the previous week or so. Around the same area were long-tailed, blue and great tits as well as many starlings.

Robin. Photo courtesy of Les Phillips.

Once near the stream that runs through the centre of the site we took shelter behind some shrubbery, and from here we started to examine the wetland birds. Several species of ducks were on show with tufted ducks regularly diving under the water and teal, shoveler and mallard dabbling around. Waders consisted of oystercatchers, black-tailed godwit, a bar-tailed godwit, lapwing, ringed plover and greenshank. It was a good opportunity to compare the differences between bar-tailed and black-tailed godwits on the ground, a classic cause of ID confusion. The oystercatchers were close enough that we could compare the differences in colour between the younger birds and the adults.

A pair of peregrines came through causing a huge flock of curlews to repeatedly take flight and a flock of starlings to gather into their famous murmuration formations. One of the peregrines flew directly over our heads giving us a great display. The combination of many hundreds of curlews, and even more starlings, with peregrines whizzing through the flocks, created quite a spectacle.

Curlew. Photo courtesy of Les Phillips.

Once the commotion was over we noted what appeared to now be a total lack of birds along the stream, having all been scared off by the peregrines. I was therefore quite surprised when approximately 20 greenshank flew out from behind the near bank. We could see their distinctive in-flight plumage patterns as they flew from left to right. A sound ‘pew pew pew’ alerted us to more greenshank as 3 further individuals then followed the original flock.

A brief ‘ping’ from inside the reedbed teased that there were bearded tits relatively close by, but on such a windy day we knew our chances of seeing one were slim at best.

The vacated stream was soon busy again, only this time with black-headed gulls as quite a good number of them flew in in a long flock. Over the reedbed a single sand martin and a single swallow hunted for flying insects. Further up the stream we caught a distant sight of an osprey perched up in, you guessed it (see previous post), a dead tree.

We walked with a greater pace towards the east bank of the reserve to get a closer view of the osprey. On our way over a yellow wagtail called and flew past us. A chiffchaff showed in one of the hedges.

On reaching the sea wall the osprey hadn’t moved and was looking rather wet and bedraggled perched in its tree. The sun soon came out and the osprey got to preening and drying itself off. The tide was now slowly receding and a small patch of marsh was poking out. Some grey plovers, bar-tailed godwits, a curlew and a knot were taking full advantage of this to roost on. One of the plovers had a slight golden sheen to it leaving the possibility of a golden plover being in with the greys, however being obscured in the marsh made it difficult to confirm. A few skylarks started moving off the salt marsh as they must have run out of dry areas and these flew towards us and onto the reserve.

Doubling back on the path we came across a boggy area with a few little egrets. A green sandpiper then flew in and we moved further along to try to get it in view. Before we could find the bird it flew off but gave us nice views of its very particular in-flight features.

A little way further along there was some activity in a sheltered area of bushes. A spotted flycatcher had taken up temporary residence on its journey south and we watched it for several minutes flycatching and then coming back to its favoured perch. Also in the same bush were a robin, a blackcap, some greenfinches and a few great tits. The flycatcher was regularly being displaced from its perch by either the robin, or one of the greenfinches, so had to make do with a secondary perch from time to time.

We tootled down towards the lake; I was hoping to be in time for the waders flying off past us and out into the harbour. It was significantly windier on top of the sea wall, and with the tide so high some waves were crashing over the wall. We sat down and waited until some of the waders started vacating, unfortunately the wind was encouraging them to go in the other direction! 3 mallards tried to fly over the wall past us, it was amusing to see them end up hovering as their forward motion was cancelled out by the headwind.

Fortunately the wind relented somewhat and the tide lowered so we could have a better look around. Around 25 brent geese, the first ones I had seen this winter, were sitting on the sea. A number of waders were on the lake, the majority being black-tailed godwits and redshank. A few dunlin were in amongst the godwits and within these was a curlew sandpiper, always nice to see. In total we saw 14 species of waders. A few pintail were on the lake and we admired their elegant form.

Brent geese. Photo courtesy of Les Phillips.

We left satisfied with the outing with lots of good birds seen, and we logged over 60 species by the end of the session. If you are interested in attending an event such as this one or learning about birds then check out the ‘Events’ page on this website.

Hugh Baggaley