Thursday 23 October 2014

The night that everything was happening!

23/08/14

With the weather conditions looking favourable for the day, with rainshowers following a good northerly airflow, it looked good for a few birds to be moving, and hopefully, dropping in!

The Moors was the first destination, and the first bird I panned onto was a 1st winter Mediterranean Gull, which was perching on the 'Gull rails' in front of the hide. A matter of 30 seconds later, and it was flying off north to feed with other Gulls on recently plowed fields.
2 Little Egrets were flying about the Moors Pool, and the usual array of ducks were knocking around, but with the light falling, it wasn't a hard decision to head to the flashes,


With the sky growing more and more stormy, it was with relief we got to the hide, and it wasn't long until it started raining! No, not water, BIRDS!

First in were a party of 3 female RUFF, which dropped in just as the rain started. But they were extremely cautious to land, and spent around 15 minutes circling the flashes repeatedly. They just wouldn't land.

They did eventually, and luckily, they were directly in front of the hide!





After some time preening, and no doubt acclimatizing to their new surroundings, they flew off into the shallow water at the back of the flash, and fed for the rest of the night among the increasing numbers of Gulls!
A mere 20 minutes after, and I picked up another flock of waders dropping out of the sky and flying low across the surface of the 1st flash. These small Caladris dropped straight onto the first island they came across, showing themselves to be a flock of 4 Dunlin, joining the 3 already present to make a decent total of 7 birds!

As the light dropped, the Gulls continued to arrive, and with the thronging masses were two juv- 1st winter Mediterranean Gulls, sitting side by side on one of the gravel islands out in the middle of the flash. They continued to sit and snooze side by side, Presumably the same two that I had the previous weekend that had arrived together!


Not a bad couple of hours considering!
MB

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