Tuesday April 9 - Earlswood Lakes (and Mappleborough Green)

 The weather has lurched from mild and sunny yesterday (when I couldn't get out), to cold windy and wet today (when I could).

Earlswood seemed the obvious choice. John Sirrett had found an extremely early Garden Warbler there yesterday, and I reasoned that even if that wasn't showing the wind and rain might drop something in.

Predictably this was not a day for seeing or hearing new summer migrants. Instead I had to make do with the hangers on. A single Common Sandpiper remained on Engine Pool, and this time it showed really well.

Common Sandpiper

One expected feature of the day was the presence of lots of hirundines. I estimated 60 Swallows, and 20 Sand Martins, and saw two House Martins with them.

Mostly Swallows

It's interesting that despite the availability of three lakes, they all chose to fly exclusively around Engine Pool. Perhaps the presence of the two rafts with their safe bushes was the deciding factor. Certainly, up to thirty Swallows and Sand Martins were regularly perching there.

Beyond that I didn't see very much at all. Three Willow Warblers and three Blackcaps were singing (I didn't walk around Terry's Pool), while a Kingfisher took advantage of the lakeside vegetation at Windmill Pool.

During the afternoon the sun came out. I was back home so I thought it could be worth a quick look at Mappleborough Green Flash. 

I arrived to find it was even windier than this morning, but that hadn't stopped three Willow Warblers from singing. One of them was a mixed singer. The incidence of mixed singing, a Willow Warbler including some Chiffchaff like phrases in its song used to be quite rare, but it now seems to be a regular occurrence around here. 

Down at the flash I quickly established that the Cattle Egret was still present, and was accompanied by six Little Egrets. This time it was close enough for its orangey crown to be visible.

Cattle Egret

The zoomed in version

Also present were three Little Ringed Plovers and the Green Sandpiper. 

Green Sandpiper

This time I managed to get some decent views of the overspill flash without causing everything to fly off.