After a hectic weekend that saw me driving c.750 miles to attend my mothers 80th birthday celebrations I was rather tired. It was my intention to spend a few days in Scotland but although I’m retired (sort of) my son, his partner and Joy aren’t and with Craig in France until late Friday we had to abandon our plans to travel up on Wednesday.
I noticed that there had been a widespread arrival of Little Gull and with Shustoke a favourite destination for the species I thought I would try my luck! On arrival I scanned the Reservoir but drew a blank. I though I’ve made the effort I might as well walk around. There was an Oystercatcher and a pair of Siskin were still present. Then a pair of Greylag flew overhead, I scanned again and saw Steve Haynes in the car park scanning the reservoir. I text him what I had seen and commented that there were no Little Gull. I had no sooner put my phone back in my pocket when I picked one up, then another. A text from Steve confirmed he had seen them as well. By the time I had walked around there were three birds. Plus a Tern, I only had bins but Steve thought it was probably Arctic Tern, which when in came a bit closer seemed right.
He had also seen a Wheater which had flown across the Reservoir and appeared to have landed in the field on the other side of the river. With that I had to leave, but I went back over in the rain this evening picking up Common Sandpiper a couple of Blackcap and a Raven. There were a lot of hirundines driven down by the rain with c.150 Sand Martin, c.10 House Martin, c.40 Swallow. Not a bad April day!
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