Landguard Point, Felixstowe 6/9/16

Today I went over to Landguard to look for some land migrants. I took the train to Felixstowe and biked from the station down to Landguard, a 20 minute journey. This is a locally famous site, as a shingle spit at the mouth of the Stour and Owell, it attracts many migrants.

 

The landscape is like a desert, with scattered bushes and shingle, riddled with the remant structures of world war two.
This is a sort of urban site, trapped between the town of Felixstowe and the docks, but it's easy to get away from it all. Apart from the dog walkers and the birdwatchers there were people collecting blackberries from the bramble bushes. From here there are good views over towards the docks.

 

Things started off well as I entered the reserve a HOBBY flew over. After that things were relatively quiet, but as I went further down the point things got better. There were several YELLOW WAGTAILS about amongst the commoner PIED. There were only a couple of WHEATEAR about, higher numbers are usually expected at this time of year.

Wheatear

On the river there were an adult and juv SANDWICH TERN, and one COMMON TERN.
Also present around the reserve were WILLOW WARBLER and LESSER WHITETHROAT.
There was a steady passage south of SWALLOWS, like sand in an hour glass, summer flittering away.
So although nothing exciting was present it still marked a good day out with all the usual suspects for this time of year.
From the train, just as it gets to Trimley from Ipswich, there was a herd of around 10 FALLOW DEER feeding on farmland. I see them pretty much every time I catch this train so they're resident in the area.