20th April

The year ticks are continuing to fall thick and fast at the moment though it can't last much longer as we'll soon have seen most things that we're likely to see! After that it will get down to the real grind!

Sunday

Dave Lowe gave the patch a thorough grilling on Sunday morning and managed to turn up a great albeit brief Redstart sighting in Burgess Field. He then found a couple of Wheatear working their way northwards in the Hinterland. It's always a relief to get this surprisingly difficult latter species on the year list. That evening Ollie Padget had a heard-only fly-over Whimbrel that called four or five times as it flew over northwards though sadly he wasn't able to pin-point it before it was out of sight. I'm happy to count heard-only on the year list so that's another to add to the tally. Apart from that a single Little Ringed Plover was the only wader of note.

As well as the usual Yellow Wagtails (5 this evening) there were good numbers of White Wagtails on the floods with a count of 4. This sub-species is normally quite hard to find on the Meadow but for some reason we're having a really bumper year.

White Wagtail

Monday

Monday was generally a quieter day with very little on the floods in the morning. Apart from the usual Oystercatchers and Shelduck there were just 4 Yellow Wagtails. However in the evening, along with a single Little Ringed Plover Ollie Padget managed to turn up another wader year tick, this time in the form of our first Common Sandpiper.

Our star Ring Ouzel seems to be so at home in his little spot that he's very reluctant to leave. I managed to find him today skulking about under a tree despite large numbers of joggers and walkers in the reserve. In fact there was even a family picnicking in the general area that he likes to hang out. By deploying a bit of field craft I actually managed to get a half-decent photo of him though it was a shame that it was so dark where he was skulking.

He seems to like it here!