Saturday 28th May to Saturday 4th June

I came back from my week away (see Gnome's Birding Diary if you're interested in what I got up to) to find the floods more or less at the same level as they were when I left. I've been told that there was quite a lot of rain for a couple of days which I guess topped them up a bit but at this time of year they recede again pretty quickly. The sad fact is the main channel of water is rather clogged up with weed now so there is just a rather narrow strip down the west shore which still seems to attract the odd wader. Given that it's been the driest spring on record (or something) it's a miracle that we still have flood water in June.

This week has seen the usual stuff passing through with peak counts of 8 RINGED PLOVER, 5 OYSTERCATCHERS and 2 LITTLE RINGED PLOVER. In addition there was the first REDSHANK for some time on the floods. On Saturday evening there were 9 BLACK-TAILED GODWITS in the deepest part of the remaining water more or less opposite the Burgess Field gate. They looked like juveniles but I suspect it's too early for returning juveniles bred from this year so perhaps they are first summer birds - I'm not really sure about the finer details of godwit plumage.

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