A good day on the reserve today.
Trails - Cetti's warbler (a few heard), great tit and long tailed tits in mixed feeding flocks, wood pigeon, wren, magpie, carrion crow, starling, blackbird, green woodpecker, chaffinch, a flock of about a dozen (probably) lesser redpolls, judging by their calls as they flew.
Draper hide - 2 Snipe, 1 green sandpiper, pheasant, little grebe, shoveler, teal, mallard, gadwall, moorhen and coot, mute swan- a juvenile seems to limping on its right foot/leg but seems to swim OK and looks fine otherwise. Kingfisher heard flying.
Lagoon 3 (from steps) - About 5 pochard with 3 very smart males viewed.
Gadwall hide (*note*- the gadwall hide and tern hide have now 'swapped' names) - 200+ lapwings, 6 snipe, green sandpiper, male pintail, herring gull, b h gulls, grey wagtail, a water rail showed well walking and swimming going from right to left right in front of the hide.
There was a fantastic view of our starling murmuration building up on the pylon and wires that you see on the left as you walk between the Ashby hide and the tern/gadwall hides. Some good views of the murmuration swooping around in the air as the numbers build up. It gradually built up to approximately 800+ birds at about 4.00pm when they flew down in groups to the reed bed visible from the Draper hide, to roost. On closing there were still lots on the pylon.
Alas no glossy ibis visible today.
I'm sure I've forgotten something ...