Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining...

Or to flip it... Every silver lining has a great big black cloud in it!

Yesterday was an excellent day for wader passage, I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the morning I had 14 Ringed Plovers, in the evening there were 14 Ringed Plovers - but at some point during the day a 15th plover dropped in and was photograghed by Ian McLean just before it flew off north...

ULTRA GRIPPING!! All photos (c) Ian McLean

We have had Kentish Plover before, Clive watched a male by the tram sheds many many years ago - but the record was never submitted so this is 'officially' the first record for the patch. I'm pleased we've had one - but gutted at the same time for missing it. Why couldn't it have dropped in before I had a look along the Estuary - why did it fly off before I had a second look along the Estuary! To make it worse, I was going to go to the tower hide at 12:30, but a funeral was taking place in the cemetery and the entrance blocked - so I turned around and came back. Whether the KP was there at that time though who knows...

Oh well, here's some Gadwall...

Three of the Gadwall on Black Hole Marsh yesterday afternoon

Today, after I woke up (rather late!), and had heard there was no sign of the KP, I went up to Beer Head.

It was another great morning up here. I was joined by Ian half way round, and he stayed longer as I was keen to get down to the Estuary in case the KP reappeared on the falling tide. My totals were:

3 Wheatear
3 Yellow Wagtail (over)
3 Redstart (2 male, 1 female - 1 of the males was singing! Ian had another 2 females)
3+ Garden Warbler
6 Blackcap
30 Whitethroat
8 Willow Warbler
3 Chiffchaff
1 Siskin (over)
1 Redpoll sp. (seen on deck but only distantly/partially, unfortunately looked too brown to be anything other than Lesser despite being rather deep sounding).

Also plenty of Swifts, Swallows and House Martins flying in and NE.

The Redpoll - very very distantly!

And here's a video of the song of the male Redstart - I have never heard one singing on Beer Head before, so a first for me...

After this the Estuary and a look over Black Hole Marsh and from the Tower Hide showed:

4 Grey Plover
6 Ringed Plover
70+ Dunlin
7 Whimbrel
8 Barwit
1 Blackwit
2 Reed Warbler (my first of 2012)
3 Sedge Warbler
3 Whitethroat
0 Kentish Plover :-(

Whimbrel

Finally, thanks to all the Twitter comments, and for people clicking to follow me. I promise this won't just be a 'whim', I'm going to keep it up because I'm actually enjoying it.