Thigh High Waders

If we were knee high in Waders yesterday, today they were coming over our boots, so to speak.

I made it up to the Lockwood at 06:50 and snuck in behind, then raced ahead, of two industrial mowers. I wasn’t going to let them flush whatever goodies had dropped in in the overnight rain.

I had extremely limited time before work so only made it as far as the block house and couldn’t see anything of consequence in the very murky conditions. Dave C and Dave B both appeared, Dave C electing to plough on Northwards and Dave B taking the decision to join me for a quick look at the East and West Warwick.

The first bird we clapped eyes on was, presumably yesterdays, Greenshank standing in front of the hide.

Nothing else piqued our interest (though yesterday I had a nasal saddled (pale green #40) female Pochard which I should imagine originated in France.

The West Warwick did not have Dave’s hoped for Black Tern, nor my hoped for Whiskered or White-winged Black Tern, so we both scooted off to work.

Yesterdays Black Tern

Almost immediately Dave C’s tweet appeared ‘Ringed Plover at the North end of the Lockwood’ Dang! New for the year and also the last of our annually occurring Waders to put in an appearance. We are into ‘interesting’ Wader territory now as everything else will be scarce or even, whisper it quietly, rare.

Photo courtesy Dave C

Out of interest I worked out how we have been doing over the last 7 years. We have recorded 26 species of Wader out of the 33 on the historical patch list and it seems that we get 12 annually occurring species. Our worst year saw just 15 species and the best a whopping 22. So far this year we are on 15 already with seven and a half months to go, maybe its lining up to be a good year.

Having packed my bins I popped in after work in the vain hope that the Ringed Plover had stayed or that Davey L’s lunchtime Little Tern was still around but neither played ball. The remaining pair of Black-necked Grebes continue to display in the middle of the Lockwood and 9 Common Sandpipers littered the edge.

Photo courtesy Dave C

@birdingprof