Sunday March 11

Despite the morning being slightly curtailed by the fact today is Mother's Day, this was a reasonably successful visit.

Though cloudy at first, the sun soon broke through and with a very light southerly, the temperatures reached spring-like levels.

The first new bird for the year was a Jay. How we have managed to birdwatch here for two months without recording one is something of a mystery. Anyway with that one in the bank, we strolled towards the pools with a spring in our steps. There was plenty evidence of movement with a small flock of Fieldfares and Redwings flying north, while all morning flocks of Starlings (the total reached 140) did likewise. A single Green Sandpiper flew from the direction of the Flash Field.

At the Flash field we quickly established that a pair of Shelducks was present. At least one has been here off and on for the last fortnight, but this is the first time our visit has coincided with the species being here. At the gate, Dave pointed out a Little Owl back in its usual tree.

Little Owl

Although they must be present all year, we only ever see them from early spring.

Shelduck

The flash pools contained 62 Teal, seven Snipe, 11 Lapwings, and a Shoveler. We weren't sure whether the latter was a year-tick, but I can confirm it was.

Shoveler

For once, the return journey was also interesting. Morton Bagot is not a great place to see gulls, but we were seeing regular flocks of Black-headed Gulls heading north, and then found that floodwater in the field to the east contained a lot more of them. Among them were a few Lesser Black-backeds, and a single first-winter Common Gull. We eventually reached a small rise from where we could count the gulls, and decided on a total figure of 160 at least.

Black-headed Gulls

Suddenly the gulls all took off, and after a few seconds we spotted that the reason was an immature Peregrine causing mayhem.

Peregrine

So no actual summer visitors, but plenty of signs that they are not too far away. By late morning a number of solitary bees were buzzing around, but none landed for long enough for even a tentative identification.