Sunday April 30

There was very nearly no coverage today. I was tied up with a celebratory lunch and Dave had intended to join me on the patch tomorrow.

Fortunately the weather forecast intervened. Monday is supposed to be a bit wet, which caused Dave to change his plans and visit today. The first I knew of this was when Lyn took an apologetic call from Dave with a list of potential year ticks present on the flash field. Fortunately for me we calculated I had time for a quick dash down before the first guests arrived.

The birds in question were significant from a patch point of view only. After a classic old man jog across the fields (mainly walking, a few brief runs, and a lot of stumbling) I joined Dave to find that the most important, a Curlew was showing well just beyond the nearest flash.

Curlew

A former breeder on the patch, since they disappeared they have been just about annual, with records typically in March or early April. Indeed yesterday I had learnt from Mark Islip that he had seen one fly over some weeks ago, so I felt my chance had gone. Hence the panic.

The second species found were a flock of four Dunlins which had unfortunately relocated to the furthest flash. With them had come a number of Little Ringed Plovers, Dave had seen five, but I only managed to locate four of them. Terrible record shot of the Dunlins coming up.

Blurry Dunlins

This is another species which occurs every year, but often involving just one record. I think this is also the largest flock to be seen here.

Dave also saw a Swift but had not heard the Grasshopper Warbler.

I managed to get back home in a bit of a sweaty state, but with brownie points all safely intact.