TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER
The first day of October dawned grey and
overcast, with a fresh SE wind and above average temperatures. It stayed like
this for the remainder of the day, the forecast rain not arriving prior to
dusk.
The current view from the old overflow - excessive mud and new islands forming
I spent much of the morning at WILSTONE
RESERVOIR (TRING) where the only 'new' arrivals were 2 DUNLIN and a juvenile
RINGED PLOVER (both feeding on the exposed islands in the NW corner). Five
juvenile BLACK-TAILED GODWITS remained on the reed-fringed mud of the south
shore, along with 4 Common Snipe.
Still large numbers of waterbirds present
including 15 Great Crested Grebes, 4 Little Grebes (see pix), 11 Little Egrets,
8 Grey Heron, 20 Sinensis Cormorant, 52 Mute Swans (including
orange-ringed 679 initially ringed in Berkhamstead on 5 May 2012), 31 Greylag
Geese, 160 Mallard, 21 Gadwall, 330 Eurasian Wigeon, at least 6 NORTHERN
PINTAIL, 560 Common Teal, 152 Shoveler, 124 Tufted Duck, 211 Northern Pochard,
552 Coot and 25 Moorhens, whilst 216 Lapwing, 214 Black-headed Gull, 3
first-year Common Gull and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull completed the
inventory.
The view now from the hide
Loads and loads of Common Teal
560 at least (Common Teals)
All 4 Dabchicks in the above pictures
Otherwise, 3 Pied Wagtails, Stock Dove, 9
Woodpigeon and a roving feeding flock of 340 Common Starlings in fields in
Cemetery Corner. A pair of Collared Dove and 25 Jackdaw were in the vicinity of
Wilstone Great Farm.
I then headed north into BEDFORDSHIRE and
replaced Jim Gurney and Martin Palmer at BROOM GP. The juvenile LITTLE STINT was
showing well on a small muddy island with a Green Sandpiper (record shots below)
on GYPSY LANE EAST whilst a group of 3 SCANDINAVIAN ROCK PIPITS was performing
well on the west shoreline of the neighbouring PEACOCK'S LAKE (also illustrated
below).
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