The ‘patch’ is still fairly quiet and the pond still has no water. The lack of water on the pond does make the few water birds congregate in only two areas, the wet ditch and the settling pond. Some of these birds move to the nearby spray fields when they have enough water to spray. The only real change in the last week has been the arrival of the first Western Cattle Egrets of the winter. Seven birds were seen last night with five on the settling pond and two more on the spray fields where they appeared to be enjoying the shower from the spray heads. Other birds seen here included ten Yellow Wagtails, one Isabelline Wheatear and one Northern Wheatear. 25+ Barn Swallows and 30+ Sand Martins were hawking insects over the same fields.
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| Western Cattle Egret |
The only other place that had some interesting birds was the settling pond which still had two Wood Sandpipers, one Green Sandpiper, three Little Stints, five Common Moorhens, one little Grebe, six Kentish Plovers and a Common Snipe.
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| Wood Sandpiper |
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| Little Stint |