Sand Martins at NDC

 

A late start after yesterdays long day. By the time that I reached NDC the morning sunshine had given way to a cloudy afternoon with a cool breeze. This is the view from Garganey hide, still plenty of water about.

In the field to the left of the footpath I saw a smart looking reed bunting and then further across 3 whooper swans with greylags and canada geese.

As well as the usual view of the water the majority of birds were on the bank to the left of the hide.

Still about 200 pintail on the reserve with large numbers of teal, wigeon, tufted ducks. A single goldeneye, 2 scaup, 4 pochard, 7 gadwall and 2 shelduck made up the test of the ducks present. Mallards and shoveler were also present, but they were not together in large groups,

Male pintail and shoveler came a bit closer to the hide after a marsh harrier flew over. Due to the amount of water on the reserve waders were on the edge of the water and always in the distance. Redshanks, dunlin, lapwing curlew and 4 oystercatchers were the only ones I could see, and I had to use my scope to see them.

I suddenly noticed these 2 Egyptian geese flying across the water.

Just after 3pm I walked to the Geoff Smith hide and I had not been in there long before another birder joined me. I have forgotten his name but knew his parents as they came on one of my trips to Mull. Sadly his dad passed away a few years ago. 

We were treated to good views of a red kite as it slowly glided down river, only for it to land on the far bank of the river and start eating some prey it had found. It was mostly hidden from our view by a willow tree. We could just catch glimpses of it as the wind blew the branches. At the far end of the reserve we noticed a group of about 50 pink-footed geese had dropped in for a drink and a bathe.

Later on I picked up a small flock of about 30 waders flying towards the reserve. As they got closer we were able to identify them as black-tailed godwits. They flew around for a while, before flying up river, possibly to Wheldrake, where large numbers have been reported in recent days.

I then picked up another large bird flying towards the church at Aughton, we identified it as a grey heron but while we were watching it we noticed 4 small birds high up in the sky and as they got closer we saw that they were sand martins. The other birder got his wish as the birds were on his trip list for the weekend. Shortly afterwards I left to the hide and had a short chat with Elaine in the car park. She had a new dog for the deaf for the weekend.

A pleasant Easter Sunday afternoon with 46 birds on my day list.