Singing in the rain

The south wind started brisk and steadily freshened all day, by evening it was drifting round to the west and quite strong. It is set to continue getting much stronger and to continue into the weekend. Steady rain in the morning also increased during the day.

Not a day for a casual stroll, the only stuff so far is from my early excursion (MD)

Rock Pipit 2 feeding together on Half Moon bay beach plus 2 on Red Nab, 1 chasing the other off.

Wigeon still plenty (c70) on Red Nab, but significantly reduced from recent counts

Male Greenfinch singing (wheezing) near pond behind Red Nab

Jack Snipe 1 - accidentally flushed from the perimeter of the saltmarsh. They are normally only found in the margins when moved out by a spring tide, or when the body of the saltmarsh is frozen. Neither of those today.

So, possibly a new arrival, or just possibly they actually prefer the terrain of the margins, but are normally dissuaded by the caravan park residents regularly walking by.

Reed Bunting on the saltmarsh 
This picture actually from yesterday, but what looked to be the same bird present today.

This Dunnock by the saltmarsh, seemed full of the joys of spring, but I suspect it will be last time for a few days!

Finally, I managed to totally misinterpret yesterday's picture of the tracks in the puddle. I looked again this morning, no sign of the tracks, I wasn't expecting any. But when I examined the white marking paint it was sound. The bottom of the puddle was light brown as yesterday, but underneath the thin scrim of mud there is bright white limestone dust from limestone gravel recently laid close by.

So the bird prints were caused by the birds feet removing the thin mud covering, revealing the limestone dust below. How this happens so cleanly I can't explain, but I am back to a large bird walking very precisely, one foot in front of the other, still a pheasant most likely.

This is the detail from yesterday's picture.
I should have worked out the correct answer by looking at the brown film over the white dashes!
Still, it is a bit bizarre.