6th May

Spent most of the morning at Grafham Water where the highlight was a great flock of 31 Black Terns which appeared off the dam with c30 Common Terns; there was also plenty of action around the lagoons with stacks of singing and displaying birds including a Nightingale which gave a few bursts of song and 2 Grasshopper Warblers, one of which showed really well in the scrub.   Other birds included a Hobby, a Cuckoo, 2 Common Sandpipers, 2 Dunlin, a Ringed Plover, a Red Kite and a lingering female Goldeneye.

                I then drove north, arriving at Spurn early afternoon where a walk round produced the highlights of my first 20+ Little Terns of the year starting to display at Beacon Ponds and a pair of Garganey on Holderness Field – also my first of the year; other birds in no particular order included 4+ Cuckoos, a Short-eared Owl floating around Long Bank, a Reed Warbler singing at Sammy’s, 17+ Whimbrel on Holderness Field with some nice coloured up Bar-tailed Godwits, 2 Sandwich Terns, a single drake Wigeon, plenty of noisy Avocets, a Greenshank and some singing Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats.

 

Grasshopper Warbler

Black Tern

Common Tern

Yellow Wagtail