Egrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention....

With sincere apologies to dear old Frank Sinatra, the sight of a Great White Egret and a Little Egret at Hornsea Mere yesterday made me smile and remember the twisted lyric from Frank's "My Way".

Great White Egret and a Little Egret at The Mere

The Great White Egret stayed for quite a while and although it stayed a fair distance away from Kirkholme Point it still gave good views.

Also at KP was a Dunlin. Nothing new there but this one was different in that it only had one eye. It seemed to be fine though, feeding as normal on the shoreline.

One-eyed Dunlin on KP

Sunday 26 August 2018
Today dawned cool and bright with rain forecast for midday onwards so an early start would give me the best of the day to enjoy. I set off to walk on the cliffs from Rolston down to Hornsea South Promenade and hoped to see a migrant or two - Whinchat was my target bird.

A few Skylarks and a lone Mipit were the only passerines to flit across my path, but over the sea things were a bit more interesting.

A few groups of Common Scoter and Wigeon flew north as I walked on the cliff tops, with 5 or more individual Gannets coming closer to the beach than usual (but still way out to the naked eye).

Wigeon going north

adult Gannet

immature Gannet

On to KP again to see what the new day has brought and the first bird I saw was a Grey Wagtail.

juv Grey Wagtail

I checked the Little Gulls on the jetty (12 of them) for any ringed birds but with such a small number I didn't expect to find any with rings. Another Grey Wagtail appeared and then another. I walked back to get a better angle to fit all the wagtails and a Little Gull into the camera viewfinder, then another wagtail appeared - 4 Grey Wagtails - the most I'd ever seen at The Mere.

2 Grey Wagtails - both juvs I think

4 grey Wagtails - at least 1 adult and 2 or 3 juvs

4GL

4GL

Grey Wagtail isn't a bird we normally see at Hornsea Mere so having 4, including juvs, was a real treat. As we have seen Grey Wags pretty often this year, always around KP, it could be that they have bred locally. Here's hoping that they have and that this year is the start of a new local population.

Over at Swan Island there were 5 Little Egrets and the Great White Egret was still hanging around from yesterday. It had been seen further out near the cormorant trees but then Jon saw it on Tree Island -

Great White Egret on Tree Island

The Common Terns are still here and making themselves heard with calls and a little bit of fratching when food is caught. This one had been successful and was perched with a small perch in its bill.

Common Tern with perch

Common Tern with perch

Another wonderful morning in Hornsea. There's always something to see here! As I walked out from KP I spotted a Cormorant on the grass, which isn't something we see often. It looked really cumbersome as it waddled towards the water.

Not-so-common Common Cranes

Two Common Cranes had been reported just about 5 miles south of us last night and an update said they were still there today. Although we had a heavy shower around lunch time, I hoped that hadn't moved them on, and went down this afternoon to have a look for them.

They were still there, in the stubble field as reported, and although they were quite distant I had very good views through the bins - and the photos aren't bad either although the light wasn't particularly good.

Crane and ostrich

Thursday 2 August - Two men in a boat on Hornsea Mere

I'd arranged with the boat man at Hornsea Mere to take a rowing boat out for 2 hours starting at 07:30 so I hoped the weather would be kind.

As I walked down to Kirkholme Point (KP), where the boat hire is, it was sunny and warm so I had high hopes for a good trip. It is also a reasonably good time for wader passage so the plan was to row over to the west end of Swan Island where there is a good length of exposed shingle, making a spit where the waders land sometimes.

I had some good news as I waited for the gates to open, in that my friend (Mike J) messaged me to ask if it was OK for him to join me. Sure it is I replied, the more the merrier!

So we set out with me rowing to start with and Mike navigating. As we passed the end of KP we saw 2 Grey Wagtails and about 5 Common Sandpipers so that was a good start 👍

Grey Wagtail

We approached Swan Island making good time and saw a Common Sandpiper perched on a tree branch. It flew off of course as we approached, trying to get a photo.

Common Sandpiper on Swan Island

Common Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper - we got too close

It was about now that Mike lost his hat, as a sudden gust of wind hit the boat 😆. It had been noticably breezy once we got out into open water and the westerly wind had been blowing us off course as we rowed into it. We expected Mike's hat to go with the wind, even though it was sitting low down in the water, but to our amazement it started going west instead. There must have been a strange current acting on it to take it in the opposite direction then!

After a bit of strategic maneuvering we managed to get alongside the cast-off hat and Mike dragged it back on board before it sank without trace. Hopefully it will just dry off and will still fit OK 😊

On the way to the spit we encountered the first of many shallow points which almost beached the boat. We had to row south for a while to get back into deeper water and then continue our journey west. Eventually we got parallel to the spit and saw the first of the waders we had come out to see. 

We knew from Jon's earlier messages that at least one Greenshank had been seen that morning and we were lucky enough to see two. The water was quite choppy and that, together with the wind, made it really difficult to keep our binoculars still enough to get a good view. I got the camera out and took a few photos, hoping that the light was good enough. I used a fast shutter speed though to offset the movement of the boat so that made the photos darker than I would have liked.

Greenshank

Greenshank

 A bit of lightening on the PC, a bit of cropping to enlarge the image and voila - two reasonable pics of Greenshank.

As Mike and I had abandoned the oars to use our bins and camera, we had been blown too close to the spit for comfort and the bottom of The Mere was fast approaching, so I put down the camera and took to the oars again to move us away from the shore.

Mike then saw another wader on the end of the spit so we tried to get in a position to see it better and to be far enough out to get some photos. Mike took up the oars while I took a few shots of the wader. Looked like a Wood Sandpiper to me through the bins and Jon rang to say he reckoned it was a Wood Sandpiper as well - he was viewing through his scope from the south side of The Mere.

Viewing the photos on the camera after we had landed confirmed our suspicions - a Mere first for me.

Wood Sandpiper on Swan Island spit

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Again, the photos needed lightening and cropping to make them presentable. All taken at 1/1000th of a second at f5.6 with a 400mm lens.

We decided to take a look round the north side of Swan Island to check if any birds had been missed over that side. This turned out to be a bad move! I rowed towards the north shore, giving the spit a really wide berth, and once we had decided there weren't any birds to be seen other than a few Little Gulls and Common Terns, we set about going back the way we had come. Easier said than done however. After several aborted attempts at getting back south, Mike had to join me on the oars and still we had trouble getting to where we wanted to be. We kept hitting shallow water and beached once, but eventually we started making headway and got south west of the spit so we could then then head east again towards KP with the westerly wind blowing us home.

It took both of us rowing full time to get back to the jetty, still with about 15 minutes of our 2 hours rental time left, but no time to check out anywhere else. 

All in all a successful expedition but we will make sure it is a calmer day next time so we can use our optics to better effect.