Sunday March 8 - Morton Bagot

A cloudy morning, with low cloud covering the top of Bannams. I had heard that John C had seen four Avocets here yesterday, so we were pretty confident of at least one year-tick.

It didn't take long before we heard the first of four Chiffchaffs singing en route to the flash field. The first here this year, but not unexpected. In the first flush of optimism we found ourselves scanning the grassland for an early Wheatear, notwithstanding that we saw none here last year. Predictably, none were present, but one of the ever dwindling numbers of breeding Skylarks posed nicely.

Scanning over towards the flash field we found that the Avocets had indeed returned. A bonus came in the form of a fly-over Grey Wagtail, another one that was new for the year here.

Counting Avocets at Morton Bagot is not as straightforward as it should be. The rushes surrounding the nearest flash constantly obscured birds. We had agreed on six Avocets, until one of my scans produced seven. Bizarrely every attempt to repeat the count failed, and I was left wondering whether I had inadvertently included one of the pair of Black-headed Gulls which was sharing the flash. 

There was plenty of other interest too. At least 32 Teal, 12 Lapwings, two or three Snipe, a Little Egret, a Grey Heron, and two Green Sandpipers shared the flash. Strangely the Shelducks seemed to have gone.

Green Sandpiper

Noticeably absent were any Stonechats. In previous years there has usually been a spike in numbers reflecting the presence of passage migrants, but we haven't seen any here since the last of the winterer's departed in February.

A single immature Peregrine provided a good end to an already excellent visit.

As a postscript I will just mention that the Garden Moth Survey began again on Friday night. I dutifully put my trap out and caught 24 moths of five species. As usual the majority were Common Quakers, backed up by three Small Quakers, three Hebrew Characters, a Clouded Drab, and an Early Thorn. If I get anything unusual or new, I will be showing them on this platform.