A full 2 watches of heavy drizzle today with mist in the morning and low cloud base in the afternoon on a SW>5 turning W>4 at 15 degrees. Some heavy rain showers in amongst making it a day of real reservoir tackle. Unfortunately this sounds like the last day of these conditions after a cracking weeks birding but all good things come to an end and tomorrow the sun is going to shine.
No sky visibility this morning with the mist and nothing on the water so concentrated on the shore and ponds area . The ponds were alive with passerines with Meadow Pipits, juv Wheatears and Pied Wagtails along with the long staying Ringed Plover whilst 3 Red Grouse flew from the south bank, a rare sight over the last 2 years.
The afternoon was again very wet with horizontal drizzle on a westerly wind, and a walk to the NE corner produced very little other than the usual geese and a juv Peregrine on the north shore along with 4 LBB gull.
About 15 minutes before packing up time the weather got extremely nasty with very heavy drizzle limiting visibility somewhat but everything sparked off at that time. The Peregrine launched flushing a Curlew that had just landed as well as the gulls, and after a couple of shots of the Pere I scanned to see where it was heading picking up 2 what I thought was gulls in the clag, then in a heart stopping moment I saw they were Little Egrets. They flew along the west bank circling then dropped down onto the mud in the SW corner. A couple of minutes later they lifted off and headed >S. This is a first of this species for Fly Flatts as far as I can see and certainly a first for me in over 50 years of watching this site even though I,ve had Great White Egret as a fly over. Another cracking day at the reservoir.
Visible Migration
2 Little Egret.........................>S
8 juv Wheatear..................blogging
1 Ringed Plover................blogging
1 Curlew...........................>W
Present
1 juv Peregrine
sev Meadow Pipit
3 Red Grouse
1m 2 juv Pied Wagtail
5 LBB gull
BS