I'm pleased to report that there's finally been a bit of a change to the bird life on the floods. Firstly the floods have grown again in size thanks to the continued wet weather and the number of birds has increased A LOT. There must be several thousand birds on the floods now, with getting on for a thousand Wigeon alone, several hundred Teal and at least one hundred Mallards. Lapwings are now about 50 in number and there have been more regular sightings of Golden Plover though no large flocks as yet. GOOSANDER are now coming in to roost regularly each evening though as yet the counts are still in single figures. We even had some waders recently with a single REDSHANK a couple of days ago and five of this species yesterday though there was no sign of them today. Starling numbers are noticeably up though the Linnets seem to have reduced in numbers - it may be too wet for them now. The gull roost has sadly been rather patchy so far with no really large counts. A few nights ago I had an adult YELLOW-LEGGED GULL and a possible 2nd winter Caspian - it was either that or another Yellow-legged though sadly it took off before I could get a good look at it or any photos.
The highlight of the last few days was today when a flock of 50+ BARNACLE GEESE were discovered in amongst the vast number (far more than usual) of Geese that are currently enjoying the soggy grass in the Hinterland area. These are almost certainly the usual feral Home Counties birds that we have visit us periodically though as official BOU Category C birds they're county-list tickable
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