Community Notes

Lots of curlew feeding in the fields, which are now very sodden after all this rain. Also a few redshank probing for worms and a couple of common snipe. Would be great if the snipe stayed to breed in one of the marshy areas between the dykes.

There was also a buzzard over the fields – another bird that has moved eastwards in recent years and is now well established locally.

A raven flew over calling in its deep bass voice. Ravens used to be common in East Anglia in the nineteenth century but they were hunted out by gamekeepers. They are now slowly spreading back from the West Country but this one is the first I’ve recorded in Shingle St. Ravens have always been regarded as birds of great omen and I’m taking this as a positive one for our Survey!

A dull, raw day. There were two stonechats near the Tennis Court, a flight of about 100 golden plover over Oxley Dairy and about 50 mute swans on the fields from the sea-wall walk to East Lane.