Covehithe 5th May 2016
Thursday was not a “birding day” for us as we had arranged to meet friends for a walk to the coast at Covehithe and then a spot of lunch at Southwold. Even then, though, we still managed to see plenty of birds and even added a few “year ticks” to our species list. These included some unexpected birds.
We parked up outside a church and walked down a track that ran along the side of a pig farm. Attracted to this were large numbers of gulls. I could make out a lot of Great Black-backed Gulls but there were probably Lessers as well. We took a turn and walked own another track with shrubs and small trees lining other sides. I could hear plenty of birds in the bushes but they were mostly elusive.
We soon reached point where there were reedbeds on the right hand side and we started to hear Reed Warblers singing. At the end of the track we reached the beach where, as a result of massive erosion, many trees had fallen off the edge of the low cliffs onto the beach below. Whole trees, rot boll and all, were lying on the beach, bleached and stripped of all but their cores.
On the right hand side was a Norfolk Wildlife Trust protected area for breeding Ringed Plovers and, beyond that, some water with a large number of Greylag Geese lining the banks. Further along you could see numbers of Cormorants. As we reached the end of the cordoned off area, we started to see a small flock of Ringed Plovers at the edge of the water. Looking back at the water that was edged with reed bed we could see mallard, Tufted Duck and a few Goosander. As we were looking at these, an Avocet flew past us low enough to get really good views.
As we returned along the path we came to the beach from we street to see some of the birds we had heard on our way down to the beach. These included Linnet, Reed Bunting, Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat. So the day that we thought would a non – birding day had turned out to be pretty good. At Southwold, where we went to for lunch, we were able to add Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls to our Gull list for the day.
In total we ended up the day with 31 species
Year Ticks : Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Ringed Plover
Bird Sightings : 5th May Covehithe
| Species | Count |
|---|---|
| Greylag Goose | 20 |
| Mute Swan | 4 |
| Mallard | 20 |
| Tufted Duck | 8 |
| Common Merganser | 4 |
| Great Cormorant | 6 |
| Common Coot | 2 |
| Pied Avocet | 1 |
| Common Ringed Plover | 10 |
| Black-headed Gull | 20 |
| Herring Gull | 2 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 6 |
| Great Black-backed Gull | 60 |
| Stock Dove | 4 |
| Common Wood Pigeon | 8 |
| Eurasian Collared Dove | 6 |
| Sand Martin | 20 |
| Barn Swallow | 20 |
| Great Tit | 2 |
| Eurasian Blue Tit | 5 |
| Cetti’s Warbler | 1 |
| Eurasian Reed Warbler | 4 |
| Lesser Whitethroat | 1 |
| Common Whitethroat | 2 |
| European Robin | 2 |
| European Stonechat | 1 |
| Eurasian Blackbird | 2 |
| Pied Wagtail | 1 |
| Reed Bunting | 2 |
| Common Chaffinch | 6 |
| Common Linnet | 2 |