I was hoping for a full morning's birding now that most of the decorating is completed, but unfortunately I was only able to spare a couple of hours. This meant parking at the church, where I met up with Dave, and making a quick dash to the flash.
The good news is that there is now lots of exposed mud.
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| Optimum condition for wader passage (Just a shame its still June) |
Even better, was the discovery of four well-grown juvenile Lapwings being protected from Carrion Crow attack by eight vociferous adults. I assume these have been present in the grass surrounding the flash for the last few weeks, only emerging once the water level had dropped. We felt that two were slightly older than the other two, so possibly two broods.
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| Two juvenile Lapwings, and if you search the shot carefully a Green Sandpiper |
Also present, but remarkably hard to spot, was at least four Green Sandpipers. These will be adults from the Scandinavia pausing to moult before continuing their journey to Africa. We later flushed two off the Kingfisher Pool and another two of the HOEF scrapes. Also new arrivals since my last visit were five adult Teal, while a single Little Egret remains in residence.
As we were pushed for time, the only other noteworthy bird was a singing Grasshopper Warbler, but I've heard that John Chidwick saw two juvenile Stonechats yesterday.
New insects included a few Marbled Whites and a Ruddy Darter. Maybe next time I'll have the time to try photographing them.
On Friday night I put my moth trap out for only the second time this month. This brought me 39 moths of 19 species, 11 of which were new for the year. The most unusual was a White Ermine (first since 2020), and the most spectacular an Elephant Hawk-moth.
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| White Ermine |
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| Elephant Hawk-moth |
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