Sunny but breezy so the Beardies were keeping their heads down, but there has been a real explosion of Stonechats. They were in the grasses and reeds on the sea shore, on the hedge bordering the sea wall, on the rocks of the sea wall, along the path and in the bushes on the reserve side of the path and on the path between the first screen and the visitors centre. A bit frustrating from the photography point of view - just lined up on a nice male on the path and a bike with hi-vis pink rider came along and chased it off. I did get a couple of pics of females.
In addition to the Stonechats the Little Grebes were busy fishing close to the hide, there were lots of late Swallows and House Martins stocking up as they moved down country and there were quite a few butterflies about - Small White, Red Admiral and Clouded Yellow
Lovely pictures, John. How nice to see swallows - ours have been gone for weeks!
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Nice pics John, we are away in Derbyshire until Sunday so don't know when next reasonable day will be. We went to Carsington Water today and slightly disappointing, managed to see Willow Tit and the now not so common Tree Sparrow.
After saying that I hadn't seen any stonechats down the wetlands for a long time, they have been abundant over the past two weeks. You've got nice clear images. While I was watching them today I thought I saw 3 swallows passing across my field of view in my binoculars. They were long gone when I looked with my naked eye. I was surprised they were still around. Sandra saw young Goldfinches yet to get the red feathers on their face. Indications that conditions have been very mild and birds have continued breeding late into the season, I assume.
We also took the opportunity to venture down to Goldcliffe with the high tide. The new platform is an excellent place to hone wader identification skills. They all stick together in large rafts to give opportunities for close comparison. Here are 6 different species in one shot. Lapwing, Turnstone, Ringed Plover, Little Stint, Dunlin and Redshank.
There were quite a few other species of waders also. A lovely morning, surprisingly mild and the sun broke through regularly.
Here is one of the Tree Sparrows.
Thanks for the comments Clare, Colin and David - cracking photos by the way. Colin your photo shows just what a fantastic resource Goldcliff is - we are so lucky to be blessed with such a diversity of waders and wildfowl in this area. With regard to the juvenile Goldfinches I snapped one on the same day as the Stonechats - I'll post a photo below.
David your Tree Sparrow is a reminder of the habitat loss that has made such a sight very rare in Britain.