Stormy seas, Fly Flatts this morning.
An horrendous morning at Fly Flatts with a mix of heavy horizontal rain and drizzle carried across the water on a gale force SW>8 at 39 m.p.h. Visibility was limited with the clouds of drizzle moving through. By late afternoon the weather had improved keeping dry and clear and even a touch of sun with the wind decreased slightly to near gale SW>7 at 33 m.p.h.
Amazingly Swallows were piling through south first thing in the heavy rain keeping very low and skimming the water whilst at least 50 Meadow Pipits were blogging in the SE pond area along with Wheatear. A poor show of gulls today with only half a dozen showing in the NW corner but the wind too strong for me to walk the west bank today to investigate further. Also the east bank is now under water so the only way I can get on there now to the NE corner is on the sloping cobble bank but this can only be done when the cobbles are dry otherwise they are very slippy so I was confined to the south bank and boatyard area.
The SE pond area is perfect wader habitat but so far, a very drastic shortage of returning waders. This seems widespread ,rather than just this area, where even MC is struggling on his local patch in Oxfordshire and only managed a single Green Sandpiper on a trip out yesterday, but its still one more than I,ve had so far this year, and times running out.
Visible Migration
45 Swallows...............>S
c50 Mipits.................blogging
10 Wheatear.............blogging
6 LBB gulls
+ usual sp.
BS