or a trick of the light.
1530 hrs at Fly Flatts and a real scorcher with only 10 % cloud cover but luckily a pleasant W>4 blowing cooling things down. A quiet session with a walk full length of the west banking, a scope of the east banking and a check around the boat compound area produced very little and I returned to the car in the SE corner with an empty camera. That was until the LBB gulls moved in to try get to the Curlew chicks and were met with plenty aggression from 6 adult birds finally forcing them to give up and move off across the moor hoping for an easier target. I finally ended up with 188 photos.
Wader wise, 9 Common Sandpipers were present including 1 chick which very nearly dodged the camera going back into hiding whilst 6 Redshank were noisily guarding chicks but only 1 Dunlin was present.
This brings me to the variant of the Dunlins passing through as remarked by AC on an earlier comment, several of which stood out to have longer bills and more chestnut backs as well as a larger size than our usual moorland breeding ' schinzii '.
The race ' artica ' from NE Greenland , wintering in NW Africa have bill lengths similar the our common race whereas the race ' alpina ' , which I believe the Fly Flatts birds to be, are Scandinavian and can be found wintering here.
On migration Spurn Point gets all 3 races through with schinzii
being the commonest with alpina showing mainly around July with several over wintering there whilst artica are much rarer usually showing on passage early May.
Maybe we,ve had all 3 races through but I believe the main were the Scandinavian alpina, unless anyone has other ideas. That is if anyone is still awake.
BS