Egrets, Gulls and Old friends

2/08/14

With it being the first few days of August, and with Migration now underway, I was out on patch nice and early to scout the riverbank.

Sadly, despite thrashing the patch for the next 3 hours, other than a few Warblers, such as 2 Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat and a few Willow Warbler it was much the same as always.

Next, I headed into Bewdley town centre, and being obsessed with Birdtrack, I decided to walk along the river, to count the Mute Swans!

What I was not expecting however was to find a Little Egret pottering about below the bridge with a roosting flock of Swans!

As well as this surprise, 4 Mandarin joined the waterbird flock, as did a female Goosander. Not bad for a quick journey to the shops!

Later that day, it was time for a roost shift, and following a look around the Moors pool, which held 3 Little Egrets among the expected species, but otherwhys quiet, so I headed down to the flashes.

It didn't take long for the Gulls to start piling in, but numbers remained fairly low (only about 600). A familiar friend dropped in, as ringed Black-headed Gull '2K44' dropped in. I first saw this Gull back in 2010 as a 1st year, and it was therefore good to see it having reached adulthood!

It wasn't much longer after before the main target of the evening dropped in, as another stunning juvenile Mediterranean Gull dropped in for the evening, giving nice views as it preened on the islands right up until dark, rather than the snoozy bird of the previous weekend.

It switched islands and sat on the read edge of the main island for the remainder of the evening.

A good variety of waders were also present on the pools with 9 species being present, with a decent count of 16 Green Sandpipers being noteworthy. 3 Common Sandpiper, a Dunlin, 10 Snipe and 3 Little-Ringed Plovers made up the list of migrant waders present among the regulars.

MB