Seeing black

Conditions over the weekend looked promising for some passage waders, terns and gulls, with winds from the SE and plenty of rainy weather fronts moving through.  Consequently, I was at the pit early(ish) on both mornings.  Saturday seemed to get quite a bit of good stuff at other sites, but I drew a blank, a Swift that appeared just before 8am being my only bird of note and new for the year.  Common Terns numbered 14 and Shelduck 6 and a lone male Shoveler being about it.

On Sunday, the first couple of hours were pretty wet.  There is no hide here, so I stood expectantly underneath a brolly.  A Common Sand flying to the main island was a year tick, whilst a pair of LRP were the only other waders.  A pair of Shoveler flying over the island joined the solitary male briefly.  The rain eased at about 8 am and about 15 minutes later, I thought I'd seen an Arctic Tern at the back of the pit and the Commons seemed to have increased in number, however, a quick squall made me lose the bird.  5 minutes further on and dry again, I looked at the back of the pit and there was now a lovely summer plumaged Black Tern dip feeding amongst the tern flock. There too was an Arctic Tern, both terns presumably arriving at the same time after the rain had stopped.  Commons numbered 24, which is the highest count of the year so far. At one point, there were 19 Commons and an Arctic lined up on the sand spit, which would have been a nice photo if I'd bothered to take my camera out of my pocket!  Apart from 2-3 Swift flying around, that was it for my passage day - oh well, better than nothing!



This rather nice record shot is courtesy and copyright of Jim Rose

A few other brief visits last week have produced a single Dunlin, 3 LRP, including 2 males on Thursday morning along with a Whitethroat near the cottages. At least 3 Garden Warblers, 2+ on the railway bank and 1 near the cottages on Sunday and 2 Reed Warblers, 1 on territory at the base of the spit and 1 in the reed bed by the bench on several visits.