22nd April

I am still trying to catch up with everything but here are least is the latest news from the 22nd.

The White Stork was around first thing on the Meadow and by all accounts was showing rather well. However the Meadow is too crowded a place for a White Stork to linger long and it was soon gone.

The White Stork first thing this morning courtesy of Mario Garcia

The Glossy Ibis pair were about on the Meadow in the morning but they too soon departed. More cooperative were a pair of Whimbrel which stuck around for the whole day. It's always nice to get this less than annual patch vistor on the year list.

The two Whimbrel

A Green Sandpiper, found by Manor Nair, was another welcome year tick and it too stuck around for the whole day. This species is surprisingly hard to get on the Meadow and is less than annual. An Oystercatcher and a single Little Ringed Plover rounded off the wader news for today.

On the duck front there are precious few about at the moment though five Shelduck are still lingering along with a smattering of Teal and the odd Wigeon or two.

As usual there were lots of Wagtails about, mostly Yellow Wagtail and Ollie Padget found a lovely adult male Channel Wagtail in amongst them in the evening. I am hoping to do a separate write-up on the Wagtails when I have a moment.

The second half of April and early May is the peak time for spring wader passage and indeed is generally the most exciting birding time of the whole year on the Meadow. However, as usual the state of the floods plays a cruical part in how things play out and this year they are rapidly receding just at the critical time so we should make the most of them whilst they last. There are still quite a few waders that we need for the year list: Knot, Greenshank, Sanderling, Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover and Wood Sandpiper would all be reasonably possible about now. Fortunately the Meadow is being well watched at the moment from more or less dawn to dusk. You never know - we might just land a real monster. I've been dreaming of Broad-billed Sandpipers for some reason!