All change

As predicted the weather this morning was grey and light rain, Marek already had LFGP covered so I went to the car park field.

Marek then joined me, on BSL were 2 Wigeon and not much else, we had a Hooby distantly over the landfill, all else was quiet. Then Marek left and I had 1 Yellow Wagtail South 07:43, 2 more 07:47, then I picked up the male Redstart and a flock of 50+ Swallow overhead.

Lunctime, I was back in the car park field, same male Redstart, 60+ Swallow, 1 Sand Martin, 20-30 House Martin, 2-3 Blackcap and Nuthatch heard.

Talk of the devil....

I was in the car park field 09:00 (where else would I be!), with Brian admiring our Redstart and we decided to view the landfill, nothing showing, but Brian got onto a medium sized wader, dropping quickly towards the NE corner of LFGP, I barely got anything on it, but it looked big enough to be interesting, so said "we'd better go and check that it wasn't a Spot Shank, or something".

As we walked back quickly to the car, I brought up my memorable dash to LFGP on 5th November 2009 for a Great White Egret I'd seen from Bittern Hide and I was saying "shame it didn't stay....". I drove us down the other end and we marched quickly down to Ron's hide, opening the flaps we both looked to the SW corner, no waders, but panning, I picked up an egret just circling above and to the right of the Oak behind the Sand Martin wall.

It turned and I could see it was way too big for Little, clocking that it had a deep neck bulge, big long wings and long trailing dark looking legs, it was indeed a Great White Egret. Sadly against the bright, slightly misty light it was impossible to age, but regardless it continued deep slow flaps as it headed towards the NE corner at about 50 feet, just for a moment looked like it would glide to land at the lake edge, but it wasn't to be and it kept flapping and on it went round the back of Lodge Wood and out of sight.

After a 20-30 minute search at the North end of Lodge Wood Lake, where the shallows are, we could not relocate it.

Also present at LFGP were 2 Green Sandpiper and a Snipe, but I don't think the wader we saw was a Snipe, so we'll never know what that was, oh well I can live with that after finding my second Great White Egret here in 4 years, talk about "talk of the devil"

Still loving Redstarts

Another beautiful late morning to enjoy our male Redstart

Good numbers of Blackcaps around, same for Chiffchaff and a brief view of an adult male Lesser Whitethroat completed my 45 minute visit to the car park field....I want to call it Redstart field as it seems appropriate and is a lot shorter to type.

71 species so far this month, lots of common birds to add yet

Expectant

I got to the car park field 09:15 and saw the same male Redstart now on it's 6th day, but apart from a handful of about 8 House Martins drifting along above the Loddon, very little else was going on.

Late afternoon I arrived for a quick feeding geese visit with my son, as we walked back at 16:55, 2 Raven rose and tumbled not far beyond the car park, but were out view in moments.

Tonight I thought I'd give Barn Owl a try, but before that walked to the bottom of the car park field and viewed out over to the left of Lea Farm. Immediately with my naked eye, I could see a dumpy round bird sat on the top of the tensioning wire to the left of the pylon nearest left to the green barn. As I lifted my bins it flew right and I got brief flight views of a pale Little Owl, before it went behind the barn.

So I went on to Bittern Hide, checked the reeds for Bittern....none, checked the exposed mud off to the far left, for waders, egrets, ducks and even rails, or crakes....again none, but those muddy edges and shallows look like it could attract a crake, so I'll try to do more evenings just in case.

A slow walk back to the car and realised I could hear very quiet hissing coming from either the box, or Oak behind, so we have Barn Owls, possibly young calling?

All in all a pretty good day! And that was without any migration going on.

Yep I'm gready, I want to hope it is our year for a Pectoral Sandpiper, we're overdue!

No sign of Wood Warbler

I only had 45 minutes, but I had to give it a try, but no calls, or sight of a Wood Warbler, which is hardly surprising really.

The male Redstart is still gracing our field, Nuthatch calling as always, a few Chiffs and Blackcaps, distant Parakeet calling to the East and that was all I had time for.

September

Today was very busy with other things, so I didn't get out until after 12:00.

August produced 99 and 2 'AP's' (Assumed Present) in the form of Nightingale and Barn Owl, but one cannot be certain, so 99 is the official total.

The record for September is 104, set last year, the recod was 97 in 2010, 95 in 2011 & 2008, just 90 in 2009.

Today, just the male Redstart remained in the car park field, Nuthatch called as usual, but whilst watching the Redstart I heard a call which could be described as 3 low slowly delivered notes "tuuu, tuuu, tuuu", repeated about 10 minutes later, but then silence. After some subsequent listening on 'Xeno' I do believe it may well have been a Wood Warbler, which I would not expect this late, early August maybe. Anyway for what it's worth I am going to look first thing tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed.

A lone Common Sandpiper was reported at LFGP.

Still 3 Redstart

Another hour or so watching our wonderful Redstarts leads me to conclude, it is just the same 3 for their third day. The light plays havoc with tones when viewing and worse when catching record shots. Either way it is a minimum of 4 in August, when there were only 4 previous August records altogether.

I also believe the female type on the 28th is one of the three still present, this bird has the grey feathers showing in the top of the breast.

Here a  few new record shots of the male taken with my Nikon Coolpix L610 thru my swaro, give me a little while and I hope to improve the quality some what

Unless someone turns up a Pochard, Mistle Thrush, Barn Owl, or something totally unexpected, we will end the month on 99, 6 more than last years new record for the month. I still suspect Barn Owl, or Skylark may have been present, probably Nightingale too.