West wind all day, occasional cloud cover but mainly sunny.
Middleton Nature Reserve late morning (MD)
Mute two pairs with 2 and 9 cygnets
Coot 2 pairs with 3 and 1 chicks
Moorhen 5
Mallard pair plus 10 well grown young
Little grebe 1 adult
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| One of the Coot families |
Cetti's warbler 2 (central marsh and "no swimming" pond males singing - initially intermittently but by 11:30 much more regularly).
Up to 11:00 I hadn't seen a single butterfly and was a bit disappointed to see three in the return leg of the walk:
Common Blue 2
Small White 1
The butterflies were outnumbered by day flying moths!
Burnet Companion 3
Cinnabar 1
Dragonflies
A couple of Black Tailed skimmer males on the main pond, but most of the blue bodied dragonflies on the main pond were Broad-bodied Chasers, which were also on most ponds and scrapes. Also:
Emperor
Four-spotted Chasers
Heysham skear - evening
Great White Egret 1. 17:20. Flew south along the line of the Kent Channel, too distant for a decent shot, but enough to confirm species. This is the first record since early December last year. Today's title reflects the change in status of this species, i.e. we expect to see more!
Great Crested Grebe 18 - this clip shows 11 of them.
Little Egret 5
Curlew c20
Grey seal 1 - it's caught a flounder and the gulls await any scraps
It always amazes me how confident gulls are on the water, when they know a seal is directly below them. It could easily grab one from below, but clearly never does (MD)
