North Duffield Carrs and Hagg Lane.

 Not quite the weather I was expecting this morning, more rain! I started at North Duffield Carrs as I did not want to walk in the rain. Just as much water as when I was last there on Wednesday. However there were more birds on the reserve. although some of them were a long way from the hide. The nearest birds were 3 little grebes, who were keeping within the area of the scrape at normal water level.

In the distance were several pintail, and amongst the tufted ducks were a pair of goldeneye. Lapwings and 3 curlew were confined to the few bits of land not covered by water. In some of the thicker vegetation I noticed a snipe. When it was feeding it was bobbing up and down, my first jack snipe of the year.

After a couple of hours I left and drove to Hagg Lane, East Cottingwith.  As I passed the farm on the right hand side of the road, I saw a large herd of whooper swans.

Hagg Lane was as expected very muddy with lots of puddles, so I was glad that I had chosen to wear my wellingtons. In the first field on the left, I saw the first lambs of the year. Further down the lane I came to a stubble field in which there were lots of bales of hay. I call them bales, but they are round not oblongs. Lots of skylarks in the field, some chasing each other about, others standing on the bales. Eventually I managed to find a corn bunting perched on top of one of the bales. Another year tick.