Tuesday 26 February – Uphill and Walborough Hill Leader: Jane Cumming

When forty members met on the beach the tide was still well down. We noted four Little Egrets in the marsh, just
a few gulls on Black Rock and not many ducks in the river mouth, so we decided to head up to Walborough Hill
(stopping to notice a Little Grebe on the marina pool) to take a look across Bleadon Levels and the River Axe. A
small male Sparrowhawk flew over our heads and stopped on a distant bush where we could get good telescope
views of him. We checked the Teal feeding quietly in the marshes – 18 there. There were one or two more Little
Egrets, and about 200 Redshank were scattered along the riverbank with two Dunlins just visible up at the distant
bend. The marshes looked very wet, having probably been swamped by recent tides, but they wouldn’t be covered with water today. Across on the Brean side we could see 40 Mute Swans, and four Roe Deer resting along the edge of a field. Skylarks were singing and a Reed Bunting perched up to give good views.What a difference a few days can make! Last weekend on very high tides, 200 Dunlins were pushed up the riveronto muddy pools for convenient counting, whereas today there were none to be seen although they may still have been present, roosting somewhere in the long grass across the River Axe. As the tide rose we returned to the beach where we found just 14 Oystercatchers and eight Curlews, also 88 Shelducks, 73 Wigeons and a few more Teal. The flocks of Black-headed Gulls were starting to thin out, but we picked out a Common Gull and then a Yellow-legged Gull, a nice find for the day. The hedges turned up a good selection of common birds including Long-tailed Tits, a single Redwing, chaffinches and Goldfinches. Finally, there were at least a dozen House Sparrows chirping along the beach road. We saw about 33 species, outnumbered by the number of walkers! (Thanks to Jane for leading the walk) Jane Cumming