12th March

There's a definite "end of season" feel to the gulling on the Meadow now. For one thing it's got really hard with a lot of the birds all looking frustratingly similar now and a lot of mongrel birds starting to put in an appearance. What's more, with the longer days it means that I'm no longer able to visit right at the peak pre-dusk time so it's no longer so productive. We've still managed to have one more good new gull in the form of a different adult MEDITERRANEAN GULL that eagled-eyed Thomas Miller picked out from the roost and one of the "usual" Caspian Gulls did pop in on one occasion.

The new Med Gull courtesy of Thomass Miller

Some video of the same bird

We've had good numbers of SHELDUCK hanging around still, with 12 there yesterday. We've also had a couple of OYSTERCATCHERS about most days as well as up to four REDSHANK. On occasions we've had some reasonable Golden Plover and one evening I counted several hundred along the shoreline, reminiscent of the good old days for this species.

The recent spell of ridiculously hot weather had been looking very promising for early spring migrants though the change to this very windy and indeed stormy period has rather put the kibosh on all that. Nevertheless with the first spring migrants starting to be seen in the county now (one flock of Sand Martins and a Little Ringed Plover) it's getting time to turn our thoughts in that direction. Who knows, we might well snaffle an early spring migrant (probably one of those two species) ourselves sometime soon.