The weather is turning cooler now but #stillinshorts!! Unsure if I'll make it to the end of the month as planned 😅
Thursday 20 September 2018
Bright and sunny with a strong south westerly wind. Off to see if the Red-necked Grebes are still at The Mere.
They were, although I only saw one of the two. The one I had was with a Great Crested Grebe between KP and 1st field. Always distant so the photos are heavily cropped and of poor quality:
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| Red-necked Grebe from KP |
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| Red-necked Grebe from KP |
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| Red-necked and Great Crested Grebes |
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| RNG and GCG taking off |
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| RNG and GCG |
I decided to walk round to the south side of The Mere to see if I could get better views from there. On the way off KP I saw 4 Little Egrets over in the south east reed bed:
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| 3 of 4 Little Egrets |
The views from 1st field weren't any better than those from KP so I wandered on to the other end of the field, checking the open shore line for waders - none this morning :(
A nice surprise over in the longer grass was a Small Copper butterfly that is still hanging on. I don't know why the photo has a bluish cast because it certainly didn't look like that?
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| Small Copper in 1st field |
Walking back I saw a couple of birds flitting about in the reed bed and thought they looked a little like Sedge Warblers. However, closer inspection proved them to be Whinchats.
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| Whinchat in 1st field reed bed |
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| A Whinchat and another Whinchat |
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| Whinchat eyeing up a fly |
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| The final Whinchat photo |
Friday 21 September 2018
It rained all through last night - about time we had a good downpour to dampen the land. The wind was still blustery and coming straight in from the west. Only 12 degrees this morning brrrrrr but #stillinshorts.
I went straight down to 1st field today as Jon had WhatsApp'd that there was a Curlew Sandpiper on 1st field shore.
Got down there and the first bird I saw was the Curlew Sandpiper - another addition to my Mere List 😄
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| Nice line up of Dunlin, Ringed Plover and Curlew Sand |
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| Ringed Plover and Curlew Sandpiper |
The Curlew Sand was with 6 Dunlin and 2 Ringed Plover on the shore, with 2 Little Egret feeding further along to the east. A single Great White Egret was also seen below the Cormorant Trees.
Still about 350 House Martins and a few Swallows over The Mere this morning. The numbers have reduced from yesterday when there were c.1000
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