Sunday March 2

A cloudy start, but it looked like we would get some birding done before the rain arrived. The first event to get our attention was a distant flock of Cormorants, and then a few more, resulting in a record count of 22.

Meanwhile about eight House Sparrows were playing hide and seek with me in the dense hedgerow, but I eventually got an image which was good enough (to me anyway) to get added to the photo list.

52. House Sparrow

We actually recorded eight of them, which is the most seen so far this year. A little further along the access road we heard, and then saw, a Grey Wagtail flying over. The second this year, a species which has probably benefited from the mild winter.

Another overdue photo-tick appeared at the main pool where a pair of Greylag Geese pitched in.

53. Greylag Goose

We reached the flash, and saw immediately that work carried out by Steve Green had repaired the problem on the furthest flash as it was flooded once more. The closest flash contained one nice surprise, a female Gadwall, plus three Wigeon, 48 Teal, two Green Sandpipers, four Common Snipe, and about eight Lapwings spread across the field looking as though they were staking out this year's territories.

54. Gadwall

The rain duly arrived and we headed back. As we did so a massive flock of corvids took to the air, and we eventually spotted a large female Sparrowhawk flying towards us. A quick estimate of the corvid numbers suggested a potential record count of Jackdaws. Later on we flushed about half as many and I took some photos to count the dots. This gave a surprisingly high count of 432, so I reckon the full count was something like 750 corvids with the proportions being 600 Jackdaws, 100 Rooks, and 50 Carrion Crows. Estimating corvid numbers is very tough.

Finally I thought I would put in a Reed Bunting shot from this morning,

and comment on some confusion which seems to have emerged following the publication of the 2011 WMBC Bird Report. I got an apologetic text from Steve Haynes which initially confused me completely as I have not seen the Bird Report (forgot to pay my membership subs). Evidently a Harrier I saw in April 2011 has gone into the report as a "ring-tail Marsh Harrier" to general mirth by all accounts (to anyone reading this who doesn't get the joke, there is of course no such thing). Steve was not sure what I had submitted , having deleted the data after starting on the 2012 report. Had I seen a Hen Harrier or a Marsh Harrier?

The bird in question was actually a male Marsh Harrier.

Now, where's that membership application form?

Post Script: At about 4.00pm Mark Islip paid a visit and found two Shelducks on the furthest flash.