Last shift of summer.

 Back at Blacktoft today after a couple of Sundays off. Summer time ends on Saturday so today was my last shift for the summer. Next Sunday will be the first day of the winter opening times. I also start my winter on that day, but my winter ends on December 22nd when the hours of daylight start to get a bit longer.

A pleasant start to the day . This was the view from Marshland hide at 8am. About 150 teal, a few shoveler and wigeon. 

the sun was just starting to shine on this mix of waders on the island. Meanwhile a few yards away the white tailed lapwing was awake.

Lots of visitors had been waiting for the half term break so that they could see the bird. If it is still here on January 1st then I can imagine that a very large number of birders will want to come and see it. I visited the other hides and was surprised to discover that there were few birds to be seen. 2 male pheasant on Townend

10 black tailed godwits on Singleton was the sum total.

The morning sunshine soon gave way to cloud and then rain, but this did not deter the visitors.

About 4pm the weather improved and I was able to take this picture of redshanks through the window of the visitor centre.

A brief visit to the hides before I locked the reserve gates revealed an increase in the number of birds. There were now 40 black tailed godwits, 20 plus dunlin, and similar numbers of snipe and redshank. 9 spotted redshanks were still present, but at 3, the numbers of ruff were very low. Lots of pink feet flew past on their way to roost along the Humber and I saw 6 marsh harriers in the sky at the same time as they came into roost. Will winter time bring a hen harrier into roost. I will have to wait until next week to find out.