Thursday 24th March

It's not every day (except the early days of January) when you get five year ticks in one day but that happened today. Part of this reason was that yesterday's Avocets meant that we had far more visitors to the Meadow and this increased coverage lead to more birds being discovered, as well as showing what a fast turn-over there can be on the Meadow.

It all started in the morning when Luke O'Byrne came to look for the Avocets. Whilst sadly they'd moved on he did find 4 SWALLOWS and 1 HOUSE MARTIN, both not just patch but indeed county year ticks I believe. In addition he spotted the long-overdue first patch KESTREL of the year down by the allotments behind the Walton Well Road car park. Later in the morning Mary MacDougall came down and she managed to find a BRENT GOOSE, initially down by the moored boats though it later moved northwards along the river to nearer the Perch. This species is less than annual so it's always great to get it on the year list. The 5 OYSTERCATCHERS, 6 REDSHANK and now just 1 RUFF were still around and other visitors contributed 2 RINGED PLOVER. By the time I visited in the evening the Ruff, half the Redshank and the 2 Ringed Plover had all gone but I did find the Meadow's first LITTLE RINGED PLOVER of the year along the East Shore. 

The rain yesterday will have helped keep the floods fresh and with more forecast over the Easter weekend this will help as well. It's an exciting time of year!

A truly appalling record shot of the Brent. In my defence, it was raining hard,
very dark and it was a couple of hundred yards away