St Aidens

It is a great sadness that St Aidens remains closed as an official RSPB reserve. I managed to visit on March 12th after undergoing serious surgery. The place cries out to have its future secured. I never come away from this place disappointed and this time was no exception. Firstly the resident kestrels put on fascinating show of what I assume was a courtship display. Amongst the usual suspects were lots of beautiful curlew with their sabre bills and burbling calls. A super flock of waders were doing their acrobatics over the marsh ,though try as i might i couldn't identify them with any certainty but was still mesmerised by their aerial displays. One of the highlights was the rather surprising appearance of a pair of sand martins who i thought out to still be holidaying in warmer climes--my own personal, earliest sighting of these lovely migrants. The other major joy was the appearance of a superb golden headed female marsh harrier low over the reed beds. A name check for some of the other sightings includes stock dove, lapwing, blackheaded gulls, lots of raucous black headed gulls, pochard, tufted duck, Canada geese, greylag geese, cormorant, coot, moorhen, little grebes who were calling so it seemed from behind every reed clump.I only managed the short walk, if you get the chance visit its a great place with massive wildlife potential.