Fly Flatts at 1500 hrs in great conditions with 80 % cloud cover and a cold ENE>4 with the shoreline back to life after a week long lull.
First off was a party of 4 Raven heading >S over the western moor along with 3 Kestrels giving half an attempt at mobbing them.
My usual trek to the NW corner just produced 1 Mallard and 5 Canada geese on the water and a single LBB gull, but on the way back another scan of the east shoreline found 16 Golden Plover which had just come in and were bathing in the pools along the waters edge.
Heading back to the south end 2 Buzzards were up beyond the Nab and a third Buzzard over to the west.
As I stopped to scan 2 LBB gulls on the south shore and 3 in the water a Kestrel whistled past me at knee height and across the south shoreline before landing on the rocks. As it did so a small wader flushed from a channel behind the gulls giving me just time to get it in the bins before it disappeared across the Flat Moor towards Cold Edge. I could see it was a Plover and the wing bars gave it as Ringed.
So a decent watch at last and finished off nicely with a phone chat to DJS who was on the top road managing to scope the Goldies from above which by this time had moved further north along the shoreline.
BS