30th April - sunny spell am, cloudy pm, 16C, light steady SE wind

This morning a Greenfinch was by the spinney to the east of the village, seen it here before, may be nesting.  6 Starlings were feeding on the pasture with the sheep and several Goldfinches were scattered around the fields, we seem to have a good number this year.

With the wind turning to a southerly quarter overnight we were expecting that migration may pick up and so it proved to be.  Chris managed to get to Stanford reservoir early and soon reported finding a Black and Little Tern passing through, so off I went.

I soon was able to find the Black and Little Terns along with a good number of Common Terns, Chris had managed a couple of distant record photos.

Black Tern (photo C Hubbard)

Little tern (photo C Hubbard)

Two Bar-tailed Godwits were also present, then 6 more flew in.  Similarly a Greenshank was present, then more came in and we had 5 together.   We also had more Ring Plover, Dunlin and a Common Sandpiper and c12 Little-ringed Plover.  At one time a Sparrowhawk flew across the inlet and tried to catch a Ringed Plover/Dunlin that were in a flock roosting.

 Bar-tailed Godwit (C Hubbard)

5 Greenshank

Plenty of Whitethroat were singing today, along with the other expected warblers.  Two Goldcrest and a Treecreeper were singing too along the bypass path.

The Cuckoo was calling, on one occasion it landed on the spit and gave good views before flying off.

I shall soon be upgrading my digiscoping tools to allow the iPhone camera to be used, this should help with getting lots of record shots, its work for Chris.