Ellie and I had a weekend in Essex visiting a friend and made the most of a fine Sunday morning to take a walk around and see what was about. We headed off over some fields east of Manningtree and through some woods, seeing the expected woodland species such as Long-tailed Tits and Coal Tits, a calling Treecreeper and a few Stock Doves amongst others.
Eventually we headed back north to the coast and walked along the Stour Estuary for a mile or so. As we reached the dockside we could see at least sixteen Goldeneye, primarily males, and around 300 Pintail and probably a similar number of distant Wigeon.
Waders were very numerous as it was low tide, with large numbers of Knot, Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank, Dunlin and Curlew. There were also a few Turnstones.
This part of the estuary is well known for the large number of Mute Swans, and there must have been several hundred present. In with the Mute Swans were about half a dozen Black Swans, obviously a small feral population. We also noted four Egyptian Geese.
We left Essex in the early afternoon with the only downside being the fact that a drake Bufflehead had been found back in Dorset whilst we were away. I had received a text from a mate gripping me off about the bird early on Sunday morning, but fortunately I didn't need it for my UK list!
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