After a stressful moving house episode, i had a day to myself. No bike this time as on my birthday i got a puncture and havent had the time or money to buy a new inner tube as the other one was shredded!!
I got on the bus instead and went to my fave patch, attenborough. i actually had an amazing day there, probably the best days birding i've had in months!
It actually started quite badly, i got off the bus and what had been a recently nice day turned nasty as i heard the rumbling of thunder in the distance. I pressed on and had a wander over to the visitor centre, but there wasn't much about. I made my way over the main bridge and headed down to take a look at the tween pond scrape. There were the usual collection of lapwing, geese and cormorants. I caught a glimpse of an odd looking tern sat amongst the lapwings and initially thought it was a Black tern but on looking in my book, i saw that it was just a common tern going into winter plumage, this was confirmed later when i saw some similar birds from the tower hide. However i did get a view of a couple of Shelduck, my first for a while, and a bird i always like to see.
Then the rain came down, it threw it down for about 10 minutes and then it stopped for a bit, so i wandered out from my cover, had a short look across the wheatear field, before it PROPERLY threw it down, the heaviest rain i've been in for a while! I stood under a few willow trees which provided a little cover and waited for it to pass. It eventually did, and i continued my walk. On route to the Kingfisher hide, a glance through my bins resulted in me seeing a group of reed bunting flitting about with some Long tailed tits in a group of trees near the path.
At the kingfisher hide i saw the usual collection of small passerines at the feeder, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Blue tit, Great tit and about 8 Tree Sparrows. Nothing much was seen across the lake, but in the reedbeds opposite i did see an odd wader, which i thought might have been a greenshank, but it then disappeared, only to be replaced by a Green Sandpiper, cracking views!!!
I then made my way over to the tower hide, where i spent about 2 hours looking out over thee reedbeds. At first it was a bit quiet, with a few Little egrets showing well, feeding in the soft mud, and a few very vocal kingfishers making themselves known! A lad next to me pointed out a snipe to me, which is a bird i've been after for ages - a bit of a 'bogey' for me - so i was very excited to see this wonderful little bird, even though it was mostly just sat around sleeping. The same lad said he saw a greenshank, but i looked through my scope and it proved to be another Green Sandpiper.
Then the rain came again! It threw it down for about 15 minutes, moving the snipe on, and making it hard to see anything, although the large flock of canada and greylag geese (with the escaped ross's) seemed to enjoy a shower. However, after the rain, everything suddenly woke up. The egrets fed frantically, and i saw 8 out all together at once, which was excellent. The snipe made a reappearance in the next channel along, this time feeding in full view. The green sandpiper also reappeared, feeding in the same spot as before, but best of all, i finally got my first confirmed sighting of the Greenshank which i thought i'd seen earlier on. It fed for well over 20 minutes out in the open in the channel to the right of the hide, swallowing crayfish whole and giving excellent views.
At one point, i had my scope lined up so in a horizontal 180 degree arc i could move it along and get a view of a couple of egrets, then a kingfisher, then the snipe, then the sandpiper, finishing off on the greenshank. Best 180 degrees i've ever had in that scope!!! The kingfishers remained vocal and i counted 3 seperate birds across the reedbeds.
I soon grew hungry and fancied getting out of my wet clothes, so i decided to leave before the rain started again. On the way back i got my first ever view of a Garden Warbler, feeding in a hawthorn bush with a willow warbler.
What a Day!!!
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