WkWT Brandon Marsh :: 01 May 2017

Another early departure to see if we could avoid the showers forecast around lunchtime. Decided on a trip to WkWT Brandon Marsh to see if we could add anything to the year list. The decision was helped by the provision of a tearoom in the Visitors Centre.

Chiffchaff again in full voice but also supported by some willow warbler. Quite a few whitethroat showed, as well as a single lesser whitethroat. Blackcap singing and moving at speed in the treetops were frustrating as I tried to get a photo. By the golf course we could see a sparrow hawk high in the sky and at some distance - we expect it was causing some concern to the birds on the scrape. As we turned the corner to the Wright Hide we could see a number of common tern. We stopped in the hide to watch and caught sight of dunlin and little ringed plover. As we watched we had a fly-past from a jay [#125], to the excitement of Charlotte.

We popped back to the Visitors Centre for a coffee and on our return we chatted briefly to one of the guys heading the other way. He pointed us to the Baldwin Hide where a common sandpiper was feeding. We got there to find the sandpiper, and a canada goose nesting right outside the window - this caused some excitement for a little girl with her parents.

The terns were passing the hide really closely and while watching them we saw a blue streak across the water - not one but two kingfishers [#126]. I had inadvertently knocked the camera into manual focus and ended up having to do the work myself. By the time I noticed the birds has stopped there passage back and forward across the bank in front of us.

As far a Charlotte was concerned the day couldn't have gone any better.

Sightings (41) included: black-headed gull, blackbird, blackcap, blue tit, bullfinch, canada goose, carrion crow, chiffchaff, coal tit, common sandpiper, common tern, coot, cormorant, dunlin, dunnock, goosander, great crested grebe, greylag goose, house martin, jay, kingfisher, lesser black-backed gull, lesser whitethroat, little ringed plover, long-tailed tit, magpie, mallard, moorhen, mute swan, oystercatcher, reed bunting, robin, sand martin, sedge warbler, sparrowhawk, swallow, tufted duck, whitethroat, wigeon, willow warbler and wood pigeon.