The weather had been pretty
rough yesterday with a strong north-east wind, particularly during the
afternoon, and a Fulmar and two Great Skuas had been seen. The two skuas were both present in the late
afternoon and I hoped that they would remain until this morning. I arrived at the north arm at around 07:30
and by the time I was kitted out I walked out to the spit with Steve to be
greeted by Dave saying in about five minutes too late. Apparently one had still been present and was
preening on the water before it took to flight and was lost from view. Terry and Allen joined us but despite an
extensive search we couldn’t locate it and assumed it had departed. Steve and Terry decided to do a circuit of
the reservoir and Dave went off to Teal hide at Lyndon, leaving just Allen and
I. As we stood peering into the north
arm Allen picked up a Little Gull and then said he had three and when I got on
them I realised that there were five.
They were all adults and as we watched them they gained height and
appeared to move off and were not seen again.
Whilst we were there we also found six Ringed Plovers, seven Dunlin, a
Greenshank, a Redshank and a Wheatear. The
two Black-necked Grebes and the two Barnacle Geese were also in the north arm
and Allen picked up a party of circa seventy Redwings, which were my first of
the autumn.
I eventually went to the
Egleton Reserve and walked back up the entrance road as there were quite a few
birds flushed off the road as I arrived.
They were clearly mainly Blackbirds although there were also a few
thrushes but all I saw were Blackbirds as I walked back. I did find a female-type Blackcap amongst a
party of tits, which was the first I had seen since September 13th. I spent a short while overlooking lagoon one
before I had my lunch but I could find were eight Dunlin and four Snipe,
although the Great White Egret had been present earlier.
After some lunch I went to
Shoveler hide on lagoon three where there was a Black-tailed Godwit and three
Redshank, although the water had risen quite a bit since my last visit. A Water Rail then appeared on the island in
front of the hide and walked the full length of it before swimming to the reeds
to the right. As it was reaching the
edge of the reeds it raised its wings showing dark barring on the under-wing,
something I have not seen before. With
little else I went to Lapwing hide where I found a couple of Goldeneye and two
Black-tailed Godwits roosting on lagoon two.
I went back to Shoveler hide to see if the godwit was still present and
it was and so there were three Black-tailed Godwits.
I continued on to sandpiper
hide on lagoon four where I found Ken, Steve and Terry. I spoke to Steve about a white Black-headed
Gull Bob and seen earlier and just afterwards he said “here this white
Black-headed Gull” only to almost immediately say no it’s a Mediterranean
Gull. He and Terry then left the hide
and Ken and I remained for a while counting thirty Pintail and thirty-seven
Golden Plovers and finding a Dunlin and a Redshank.
I returned to the north arm
with Ken where we found one of the two Black-necked Grebes and four female-type
Red-crested Pochard. With the weather
not showing much improvement we finally called it a day and headed off home.
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