Swannery Birding Highlights Of The Week...
Monday 24th to Sunday 30th June 2013.......
Bird Of The Week...
Considering the time of year it was a fairly good week for birds, although for the second week running my bird id skills left a lot to be desired! It was while I was uploading my pictures of Friday and Saturday's 'Green Sandpiper' for this weeks' post that I realised it was in fact a Wood Sandpiper! To make matters worse there was no sign of it today! Now there was a Wood Sandpiper at Lodmoor RSPB on Thursday so when I found the expected first 'Green' of the season on Friday, 'Wood' should have firmly been on my radar but for some reason it wasn't. My only defence is that I'm used to seeing nice fresh juveniles later in the 'autumn', not summer plumaged adults this early!
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| Adult summer Wood Sandpiper on meadow pool this week. Now that supercilium should have been a give away! |
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| ...And the large spots on the upper-parts and the narrow barring on the tail... all good Wood Sandpiper features...Doh! ... What am I like? |
And Runner Up...
A first-summer Arctic Tern... |
Friday's first-summer Arctic Tern.
Now this too would have tested my id skills if it wasn't for the fact that last year's bird was still fresh in my memory and to help my growing self doubt a first-summer Common Tern was around today for comparison (although unfortunately I wasn't able to get a photo of it).
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The Rest Of The News...
Wildfowl...
There were no real changes from last week, with no new species in and numbers similar (see last weeks post).Waders...
Apart from the aforementioned Wood Sandpiper the three Black-tailed Godwits remained to Monday with one to Tuesday; several Curlews flew west (with a peak of four on Tuesday); there were one or two Common Sandpipers most days; a single Lapwing lingered and of course the two breeding pairs of Oystercatchers and their young are still present.
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| The three Black-tailed Godwits on meadow pool. |
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One of at least half-a-dozen Curlews that flew west this week. © Charlie Wheeler wheeler-photography |
Gulls & Terns...
Apart from the Arctic Tern, new in this week were four Mediterranean Gulls on Wednesday and one today...
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| Adult summer Mediterranean Gull today. |
Otherwise the usual gulls and a few Sandwich Terns were seen and the Common Tern colony is still doing well with many chicks now present and, as well as the first-summer present today, the second summer lingers. There has however been no more sign of the dark-billed possible hirundo/longipennis intergrade.
Land-birds...
Very little to add to last week's list with no raptors of note and the only obvious passage birds being a few Sand Martins.
Other Wildlife...
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| Water Vole... still much in evidence thankfully since their return a few years back. |
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| Male Banded Demoiselle... the first so far this summer following on from the first Beautiful Demoiselles a few weeks back. |
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