Usually four, but up to six, Spoonbill were still around, seemingly moving between the river and Flat Beach, but sometimes also dropping into Castle Water.
The heron family has been represented in large numbers at Castle Water in October with peak counts of six Great White Egret on 17th and a whopping 29 Grey Heron on 19th.
Brent Geese have been seen heading west along the seashore and 16 have lingered on the New Saltmarsh from 18th. It’s worth studying these beautiful, dainty geese. Young birds can be distinguished by their pale upper wing-coverts.
Sandwich Tern can linger well into October and so it was that 46 were counted at Flat Beach on 7th.
Pintail numbers were building nicely with 50 on Flat Beach on 4th and an especially notable 92 at Castle Water on 15th.
The Spotted Redshank has been ‘around’, but rather elusive. Notable wader counts at Flat Beach include three Greenshank on 2nd, 42 Grey Plover on 4th and 42 Ringed Plover and 53 Dunlin on 7th. Castle Water offered two Green Sandpiper on 25th, a Jack Snipe in the reedbed on 27th, three Black-tailed Godwit on 28th and two Greenshank on 29th.
An interesting leucistic Wheatear was seen near the river mouth on 14th. Leucism is a genetic condition that causes a loss of melanin pigmentation in a bird’s feathers.
The bird of the month, albeit a ‘one-day wonder’, was a superb Desert Wheatear near the Red-roofed Hut on 30th. This is a bird of deserts, dry plains and stony hillsides. It breeds far away in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. It seems improbable, but every autumn – usually in October or November – a few birds get caught up in unhelpful winds or miscalculate their migration route and end up in the UK, many miles off course.
The lucky observers of this rarity had the added bonus of a fly-over Glossy Ibis, still a very scarce bird on the reserve.
A Short-eared Owl flew out to sea on 17th and a Merlin, putting up all the birds at Gooders Hide on Halloween, seemed an appropriate way to end the avian month.
A Mottled Shieldbug was seen at Castle Water on 28th. This species was first recorded in the UK in 2010 and has since been establishing itself as a resident. Clouded Yellow butterflies were still in flight at the end of the month.
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