Late afternoon at Fly Flatts in conditions that were 100% perfect for me and the birds.
The area was just below the cloud base with the tops of the turbines in fog but enough depth of sky showing for fly overs. With 100 % light grey cloud cover on moderate NE> 5 at 22.6 mph and damp with fine drizzle the setting was perfect.
The minute I got out of the car and was tackling up it was apparent that the birds felt the same as me with the sky and shoreline alive with movement.
Swifts were piling over on two levels. some skimming the water whilst others were high up in the edge of the fog. I estimated over 200 birds all slowly heading >N .
Herring and Lesser Black Backed gulls headed >NE into the wind throughout along with around 80 Lapwing in the same direction.
Snipe, resident Lapwing, Curlew and Redshank were noisy in the air, probably all with chicks on the moor.
The shoreline was unbelievable with several Mipits and male Reed Buntings by the waters edge and waders were everywhere, Dunlins now being the dominant wader outnumbering the 11 Common Sandpipers present with a record count of 16.
5 Dunlin were in the SE corner along with 2 in the boat compound whilst 8 were near together in the SW corner and another single on the west bank.
All these birds so far look to be moving through sticking to the shoreline whereas usually breeders spend their time moving between the water and across onto the flat moor.
An exhausting hour trying to take it all in whilst scanning all the shoreline carefully for anything special but one of those one in a hundred visits.
BS