{"id":935146,"date":"2016-05-29T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=dec364ea17a1f63ca094bc2dcc02cf81"},"modified":"2019-12-23T01:06:54","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T12:06:54","slug":"pennington-marsh-13th-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/pennington-marsh-13th-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennington Marsh – 13th May"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another morning at Pennington Marshes was needed and I was on site by 06:00. It was remarkably cold for this late in the year with a north-easterly wind blowing and so I set off with fleece and gloves.<\/p>\n

Birding Efford lagoon it was apparent that the Swift, Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin were struggling for food as they foraged a few centimetres above the waters surface.<\/p>\n

Numbers of each were approximately 30, 20, 75 and 50, respectively. There was little else to be seen on the lagoon but for half a dozen Dunlin so I set off on my usual circuit covering Shoveler Pools, Butts Lagoon, Fishtail Lagoon, Keyhaven Lagoon and then along the Ancient Highway.<\/p>\n

I spent a considerable amount of time scanning through the waders in the bay off Butts Lagoon. There were around 200 Dunlin gathered and I was secretly hoping for a rarity – maybe a Broad-billed Sandpiper but it was not to be. Most of the Dunlin were in a pretty much incomplete summer plumage so I guessed that these birds are non-breeders as surely breeding birds would be on territory by now?<\/p>\n

There was a considerable amount of variation within the plumages on show and I supposed that much of this variation was down to the extent of summer plumage gained and sex. However, one or two birds appeared to be markedly greyer and I guessed that these may have been of the race schinzii while the majority were of the nominate race alpina.<\/p>\n

Both are common in the UK with the former said to be the common wintering race while the latter is a migrant wintering in southern Europe and north-west Africa. Schinzii breeds around the Baltic, coast in northern areas of the UK, Iceland and south-east Greenland while alpina breeds from northern Scandinavia and northern Russia east to the Taymyr Region.<\/p>\n

Other waders in the bay off Butts Lagoon included 15 Grey Plover, five Whimbrel, 30 Ringed Plover and 25 Turnstone. Good numbers of Swift buzzed overhead and I scoured them for a bird with a white rump but no luck.<\/p>\n

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Little Tern – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Little Tern – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Dunlin (above 12 images) – I think all the above are probably alpina with broad rufous fringes to the scapulars and greater coverts and heavy streaking on the breast above the black belly.<\/p>\n

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This bird I believe maybe schinzii with paler chestnut fringing, broad grey tip to the scapulars and a small belly patch. There is also a clearer white band above the belly and the bird appears paler although this maybe an artefact of the number of winter type feathers in the upper parts.<\/p>\n

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Ringed Plover – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Ringed Plover – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Swift – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Swift – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Common Tern – Fishtail Lagoon<\/p>\n

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Common Tern – Keyhaven Lagoon<\/p>\n

The skies were blackening and my walk along the Ancient Highway was rather hurried as I aimed to get within a short dash of the car. I spent some time scanning the Swift and Hirundine over Efford Lagoon hoping for a Red-rumped Swallow. These birds were putting on a fantastic show as they buzzed low over the water surface. The first spits of rain hit and I made a run before just as the skies opened.<\/p>\n

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Reed Bunting – Pennington Marsh<\/p>\n

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Swift – Efford Lagoon<\/p>\n

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Swift – Efford Lagoon<\/p>\nSubscribe to our FREE Newsletter<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another morning at Pennington Marshes was needed and I was on site by 06:00. It was remarkably cold for this late in the year with a north-easterly wind blowing and so I set off with fleece and gloves. Birding Efford lagoon it was apparent that the Swift, Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin were struggling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1921,"featured_media":2196519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0yZ0jfoFIL8\/Vzb0rimMHTI\/AAAAAAAAFI0\/GQsl7_dHYwUPJxaOnrmFy3cJDNawA319ACLcB\/s640\/D39Q5069-2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[1138,1617,713,3981,2219,1162,982,1400,1289],"class_list":["post-935146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-broad-billed-sandpiper","tag-common-tern","tag-house-martin","tag-red-rumped-swallow","tag-reed-bunting","tag-ringed-plover","tag-sand-martin","tag-shoveler","tag-whimbrel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2196519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}