Leader: Nick Edwards Reporter: Cath Robinson The weather had been so good up until the Sunday....Eight of us turned up at the Winterton Beach car park hoping that the forecast for rain later in the morning might be wrong. We started off, most of us prepared with waterproofs just in case. And after a short hike along the dunes, we arrived on the beach near the roped off sector, already hearing the cries of Little Terns. There were, literally, hundreds lined up on the water’s edge occasionally all taking off and swirling in a cloud above the sea. On our other side we picked out many nests in the roped section, some with quite large chicks; some with adults still incubating and there were also a few Ringed Plovers sitting on nests and also roaming the beach. It was an amazing sight and a real treat to see so many Little Terns. We met up with an RSPB worker on the beach. They provide a round-the-clock presence trying to deter dogs and people walking too close and at night deterring mainly mammalian predators: hedgehogs, foxes and deer. The count is about 400 adults: she was reluctant to say how many chicks. Currently this is the largest count of the East coast colonies. The birds were a bit edgy that morning because there had been 3 visits by a local Hobby: currently this was the main daylight predator at this site. Diversionary feeding (white mice) for Kestrels
seemed to have worked: the local Kestrels were about to fledge so the risk would be much less, and we only saw one Black-headed Gull in the colony: apparently most of the gulls were at the far more northerly end of the beach and towards Eccles. She said that corvids and any passing gull were soon seen off by colony action. So, it’s currently looking good for the Little Terns this year. We left the beach to go back to the Dunes and after a little while the weather took a turn for the worse: the forecast rain started and carried on. We saw a rather wet Skylark but not much else so decided that a coffee back at the carpark was our best bet (where one of us actually had a Mr Whippy: a triumph of seasonal hope over reality I think: hot coffee for me!). It cleared up a bit then, so we made another foray this time to the southern end of the area. We added a few more birds: Chiffchaff, Stonechat, Pied Wagtail, Song Thrush, a female Blackcap and then most surprisingly some of us heard a few seconds of a Nightjar churring. Sadly not repeated but it did occasion memories of Emily’s nightjar at Frampton: we checked the footpath carefully! Then it started to rain again: we waded back through a forest of bracken to the main footpath and decided to call it a day: Mission Little Tern accomplished albeit we were a bit wet and cold. June 30th!! Many thanks to Nick for organising.
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