Grafham Water and Ouse Washes 3 September 2013

High pressure moving in from the south resulted in a sunny warm day with temperatures reaching 24 degrees winds were light south-westerly.

Three hours from 06.30 along the Grafham dam and adjacent areas: 
8 Yellow-legged Gulls; just 2 Common Terns; 1 Dunlin; 1 juvenile Ringed Plover, c110 Yellow Wagtails along the dam and cropped grass areas included three paler variants with greyer mantles, white supercilia and covert bars were quite possibly Blue-headed Wagtails; c. 30 Swallows; Chiffchaffs were around in good numbers with fewer Willow Warblers and a juvenile Redstart was seen briefly at the south end of the dam.

Ouse Washes
Walked from Welches Dam to the railway bridge, the only decent area of water and mud fringe was in front of Stockdales hide where most of the birds were concentrated including c1500 Teal; 9 Garganey; 117 Ruffs, c. 80 Snipe; 2 Ringed Plovers; 12 Black-tailed Godwits; 1 splendid Spotted Redshank in full breeding garb; 4 Greenshanks; 6 Green Sandpipers and 1 juvenile Little Stint. Few passerines were logged with a Whinchat being noteworthy. A Jack Snipe which dropped in from high was pretty early though a small number have arrived on the east coast in recent days. 

Clouded Yellow butterflies were on the move with 8 counted all moving south-west. 

No comments:

Post a Comment