Tuesday 11th to Thursday 15th July

These last few days have effectively seen the end of the floods. When I went down on Tuesday there were still two small pools left but by Thursday there was just one small puddle near the Trap Group allotment gate. On Tuesday's visit there were the 7 common terns again, a mixture of adults and juveniles - it's great to see signs of their breeding success. There was also a LITTLE EGRET around. On Wednesday Richard Foster found 3 LITTLE RINGED PLOVER still skulking around the remains of the shoreline, 2 juvenile YELLOW WAGTAILS and a COMMON SANDPIPER by the river near the Perch. On Thursday, despite the lack of water, one of the OYSTERCATCHERS was back, there was one juvenile LITTLE RINGED PLOVER still about, just a couple of adult common terns and a single juvenile YELLOW WAGTAIL.

Despite the lack of water, the "flood area" seems to be very rich in insect life with loads of flies flying up as you walk over it. For this reason the area is full of pied wagtails now. I found at least 15 of them going to roost in one of the small hawthorns by the boats.

Despite the fact that the young terns are fully fledged and flying around the adult birds took it upon themselves to dive bomb me as if I were threatening their nest.