WeBS count for June and a white-winged black tern!

Almost a month out of date, but here are the Wetland Bird Survey counts for June. Of particular note were the high numbers of great crested grebes on site. Almost all of them floating around on the newly restored Phase 3 area.

A big thank you to our dedicated Langford WeBS team for covering what is now a pretty big area.

In more up-to-date news, there was a white-winged black tern on the reserve this morning! first picked up over Phase 3 by the Birdman-of-Langford aka Mark Dawson at 05:30, it was then seen throughout the morning feeding over Phases 1, 2 & 3. I saw it at 10:30 feeding over the Phase 2 area and it was easily viewable from the public 360 viewing screen. This tern species breeds in Eastern Europe and Asia, so the Langford individual has strayed a bit off course. It joins a long list of unusual (for Langford) birds that Mark has found here this year including common scoter, kittiwakes, glossy ibis, Arctic skua, black terns and little gulls. As mentioned before it pays to walk the big perimeter loop around the outside of the site as you never know what you might see. As well as the white-winged black tern I also had snipe, avocet, greenshank and common sandpiper on the reserve today, loads of gulls on Phase 3, common terns fishing, still lots of six-spot burnet moths on the wing and a good variety of dragonflies. Remember to also check the big ash tree next to the info board in the car park for purple hairstreak butterflies, small, fast and silvery looking. A bearded tit was seen on 8th July (first sighting since March) and the turtle dove is still being picked up sporadically on the western side of the site, it's been seen and heard there since mid-May.