All the excitement today happened in the last five minutes before I had to return home, so I'll start at the end, as it were.
I'd delayed my visit to the afternoon due to heavy morning rain. Unusually I'd chosen to park by the little church, so I was lucky to even be there. I was sitting in the boot of my car removing my wellies after a fairly typical visit to the patch. Glancing to my left I noticed a small bird perched on the apex of the roof of a barn. It bobbed its head like a chat, and I wondered about Wheatear. Then it shivered its tail and I knew it had to be a Redstart or a Black Redstart. The light was pretty bad, but there was no doubt this was a grey bird with an orange tail, so a Black Redstart.
Having slogged around the patch for very little reward all summer, this bird was just the fillip I needed. Perhaps it's not such a bad place after all. The third Black Redstart for the site, but the first to be found by the church.
Going back to the start of the afternoon, I had a fairly decent bird on the walk down the Millennium Way footpath when I flushed a brown warbler from the long grass. It flew straight into the hedge behind me so I only had a close naked eye view of what I'm pretty certain was a Grasshopper Warbler. I hung around for a few minutes but it didn't re-emerge.
I'd packed my scope for a change and was therefore able to scan the furthest flash. This revealed an influx of dabbling ducks including a Wigeon, a Shoveler, and the usual flock of Teal. The nearest flash contained more Teal and seven Green Sandpipers, I later flushed another from the scrapes. The four Little Egrets and Lapwing flock was also still present.
Other birds around were at least nine Chiffchaffs, a Willow Warbler, two Lesser Whitethroats, and a female Tufted Duck. This will have been the one Mike saw on Sunday.
Botany doesn't often feature in this blog because I know very little about plants. However I was sufficiently taken by a patch of unfamiliar yellow flowers that I asked my app what they were. The answer came back as Common Fleabane.
I've probably walked passed them every year since I've being coming here, but I can't recall seeing the clump before.
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