Rares at last

An interesting weekend at Linford, not least in the change in water levels.  The bund is now almost entirely underwater, the various reserve pools are at high levels, and the river Ouse has flooded near Blackhorse Lake.  Pretty sure I saw Noah drifting by this evening, waving from his boat.

Anyway, an early morning stakeout with Si on Saturday was ace.  He turned up at some stupidly early hour, I turned up a little later, but luckily hadn't missed anything.  Just when it looked like interest would be confined to watching wagtails and the Garganey on the bund, a Whimbrel flew in from the east, and didn't stop, heading towards Gayhurst.  Fifteen minutes later, a Little Tern flew in (also from the east), but this time battled against the wind and headed across to Blackhorse.  Brilliant stuff, and my first Little Tern at Linford since the mid-1990's.

Also evident were large number of hirundines, mostly coming in from the SE, feeding over the water, and scooting off NW.  Difficult to accurately count, as plenty lingered for some time, but certainly hundreds of Swallow and Sand Martin.  Also 2 male Shoveler were on the bund, the Dabchick were squealing away from St Peters, and 4 each of Yellow Wag and LRP were also on site.

As an additional bonus, we finally saw both the Cuckoo, and the Gropper, the last showing very well as it sung from the front meadow.  Also a definite increase in warblers on site, with 3+ Reed, 4 Sedge, and c6 Willow Warblers.  But still no Sylvia's other than Blackcap.

A visit after the rain today was somewhat less productive.  A few large gulls batted over NE, a male Wigeon was on the bund, and 5+ Swifts zipped around amongst the mass of hirundines.

Winds are generally from the east over the next week, and normally this would be good for waders, but with absolutely no bund for them to land on, it's going to be a struggle to increase the year list.  However, if the council get their act together and open the sluice gates (unlikely), that might make for a different story.