First Wheatears

21st March - a nice sunny day but with a cold breeze.  I paid a few brief visits to the pit today in the hope of picking up Sand Martin - there had been a noticeable national arrival of this species the previous day - however, no luck with this one yet.  There had also been an additional arrival of Garganey the previous day, as Dave C had seen another male join the pair which have now been on site for 3 weeks.  Again, there was no sign of any of these birds in the morning.

Best bird from a patch perspective was a Treecreeper, picked up singing behind the western bench and seen briefly on a tree trunk before flying off.  An annual bird, but I don't see many of these.

Later in the morning, I checked out the Pump Lane paddocks for Wheatear.  This time I was in luck, as 4 birds were present and my first of the year.  They were a little distant to the north of the path, so no record shots yet!  There were also 21 migrant Meadow Pipits creeping about.

Midday saw me back at the pit, where this time, a single drake Garganey was visible on the west side of the spit feeding in the margins.  I assume that this is the new bird, as the original pair are always together.

A Little Egret was also on the back of the spit.

Finally, a quick mid afternoon look at c4:30pm.  This time, all 3 Garganey were showing well on the west side of the spit.  There was quite a bit of preening going on, so maybe they had just awoken from a snooze.  They were never close enough together to get all 3 I the same shot, but here is another shot of one of the males.

There were obvious groups of Snipe feeding in the open areas of the spit and I counted 31 birds, which is a noticeable increase on recent days, so maybe might still get a migrant Jack.

Common Gulls were streaming in for the roost, but I did not have time to stay for this unfortunately.  Another or the same adult Med Gull was seen not long after I left.