North Duffield Carrs

 A wet day as per the weather forecast, so any birding had to be done from shelter and the Garganey Hide was just the job. A couple were trying to get their bulldog to walk along the path , but judging by its lack of progress it did not seem interested.

Luckily the wind was not blowing the rain towards the windows so I was able to open it and set up my telescope. Lots of birds on the reserve but most of them were on the far side. Using my scope I slowly scanned from left to right. Mute swans, lapwing, teal, black tailed godwits, shelduck, shoveler, wigeon amd more lapwings in the distance along with other waders I could not identify at that distance. A pair of stonechats were active near the bund.

Then it all changed

a marsh harrier appeared over the far side of the reserve and lots of birds took to the air. Lapwings, golden plover above them with a few small waders as well. The marsh harrier continued to fly across the reserve putting more birds to flight. The lapwings and other waders settled back down on the far side of the reserve. The marsh harrier continued its flight and I lost sight of it.

The teal, wigeon and waders all settled down again and the only activity was the stonechats. Then the marsh harrier had another fly round. This time it spent more time over the far side of the reserve which resulted in the waders taking to the sky and flying quite high. After several minutes of circling over the far side of the reserve the lapwings landed a bit closer to the hide and they were joined by the golden plover, dunlin and ruff. Several lapwings appeared on the bund.

I was pleased to see that the curlew with a damaged left leg was with them. More lapwings settled to the right of the hide and a few dunlin joined them.

As I looked at the birds I noticed something different in the field across the river.

The surface of the field had been covered in what looked like plastic sheeting!

The marsh harrier had another fly around and this time it flew closer to the hide which had the effect of sending all the birds back to the far side of the reseve again, so I decided to leave for home.