LWT Gibraltar Point

 

The fourth and final stop on my weekend in Lincolnshire.

As we were looking at the notice board, we met the reserve warden. He had just completed the monthly WEBS count. He had seen thousands of knot, a long eared owl and lots of warblers, so we set off with high hopes of a good days birding.

Near the toilet and visitor centre we had excellent views of a Wheatear.

A Meadow pipit was busy hunting

We walked down to the Wash viewpoint. On the way we saw a swallow. It was perched on the top of a boat, which the warden told us is not a boat but a swallows nest!

Near the viewpoint were Brent geese.

They were not bothered about us being close. We passed this Little tern colony on the way.

They are made from all the litter that visitors leave behind.

After a while we slowly walked back along the track and followed the cycle path to the first hide.

We heard several warblers as we strolled through the plantation but only managed to see blue and great tits. The first hide we visited looks over Jackson's Marsh, from here we saw a pair of Greenshank feeding and 3 deer, which we think are Muntjac.

On our way to the next hide we heard and saw chaffinch, goldfinch and greenfinch.

The middle hide affords a view over Croftmarsh, as well as Jackson's Marsh and Tennyson's Sand. As we looked to our left we could see a Great white egret on Jackson's Marsh, now we had left the hide!

As we walked towards the last hide a Buzzard and a Marsh harrier flew overhead.

We then crossed the road and followed Mill Pond Road.

The hide overlooking The Mere had Lesser and Greater Black-backed gulls. & Curlew flew over, but decided not to land and flew off towards the coast. The hide overlooking the Fenland Pool had no new birds for our list.

This was our view from Mill Hill viewpoint. People were walking on the sands and several were paddling in the sea. We were unable to see any birds on the beach, so we followed the path back to the visitor centre. We were glad to have made that decision as we passed a notice informing us that due to coastal erosion there was no way along the beach to reach the visitor centre.

We ended the day with 45 birds on our day list and a total of 68 for the weekend.

Good weather and excellent company.