A few more passage waders

TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER

 

The first day of October dawned grey and overcast, with a fresh SE wind and above average temperatures. It stayed like this for the remainder of the day, the forecast rain not arriving prior to dusk.

The current view from the old overflow - excessive mud and new islands forming

 I spent much of the morning at WILSTONE RESERVOIR (TRING) where the only 'new' arrivals were 2 DUNLIN and a juvenile RINGED PLOVER (both feeding on the exposed islands in the NW corner). Five juvenile BLACK-TAILED GODWITS remained on the reed-fringed mud of the south shore, along with 4 Common Snipe.

 Still large numbers of waterbirds present including 15 Great Crested Grebes, 4 Little Grebes (see pix), 11 Little Egrets, 8 Grey Heron, 20 Sinensis Cormorant, 52 Mute Swans (including orange-ringed 679 initially ringed in Berkhamstead on 5 May 2012), 31 Greylag Geese, 160 Mallard, 21 Gadwall, 330 Eurasian Wigeon, at least 6 NORTHERN PINTAIL, 560 Common Teal, 152 Shoveler, 124 Tufted Duck, 211 Northern Pochard, 552 Coot and 25 Moorhens, whilst 216 Lapwing, 214 Black-headed Gull, 3 first-year Common Gull and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull completed the inventory.

The view now from the hide

Loads and loads of Common Teal

560 at least (Common Teals)

All 4 Dabchicks in the above pictures

 Otherwise, 3 Pied Wagtails, Stock Dove, 9 Woodpigeon and a roving feeding flock of 340 Common Starlings in fields in Cemetery Corner. A pair of Collared Dove and 25 Jackdaw were in the vicinity of Wilstone Great Farm.

 

I then headed north into BEDFORDSHIRE and replaced Jim Gurney and Martin Palmer at BROOM GP. The juvenile LITTLE STINT was showing well on a small muddy island with a Green Sandpiper (record shots below) on GYPSY LANE EAST whilst a group of 3 SCANDINAVIAN ROCK PIPITS was performing well on the west shoreline of the neighbouring PEACOCK'S LAKE (also illustrated below).