A lovely sunny and even warm day and despite various route issues seven of us arrived at the reserve and enjoyed initial viewing from the first shelter while drinking coffee or eating a bacon butty from the famous Butty Van. As usual a huge flock of Pigeons including some feral ones were on one islet.
A challenge at this time of the year is the eclipse plumage during moulting of wildfowl, we did however identify Mallard, Pochard, Tufted and Grebes both Crested and Little.
As last year the highlight was seeing a few Green Sandpiper and Greenshank in close proximity to each other and sufficiently near to us to be confident in our identification of them, for the day! On the same mud scrapes were three of four Ringed Plovers and Snipes. A Marsh Harrier flew over and one Buzzard was seen later, the only raptors, perhaps too high on the thermals?
We did the walk along the far side of the site, now full of vegetation but few (visible) birds despite the large crop of blackberries. We did have an occasional taste but were urged not to forage and to leave the crop for nature. As always there were many, very big ones, out of reach so no problem there.
Butterflies were out in the sun as were dragonflies and damsel flies. Our usual experts were not able to be with us this time so identification was a bit more limited, definitely by me.
Sometimes it is the absence of birds that feels notable, small garden birds were few and far between though a Robin was waiting for our crumbs. I am not sure that any Gulls were seen and only an occasional Swallow. Notwithstanding this just over 40 species were recorded on a very pleasant trip.
Josephine Drake
