Back to the patch and the fifth wave

The useful part

It really has been an extreme summer this year with several serious wildfires and droughts across the country. It was quite lively on the bird front HERE with a nice flock of mixed hirundines on the front garden phone wires and one or two juvenile Sparrowhawks playing cat and mouse with them. This morning I headed over to East Side and walked to the Spit and back and then went over to Mill Lane and Ferry HERE.

How it works

• Mill Lane Marsh has dried out but fortunately the RSPB have partly flooded Ferry again.
• Highlights included an influx of autumn wildfowl with 18 Teal, 3 Shoveler and 8 Gadwall, huge numbers of Med Gulls (I estimated 1500), 9 Yellow Wagtails in White's Creek and my first 2 Wheatears of the autumn.
• A nice little selection of waders on the rising side with 14 species including 4 Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 7 Whimbrel and 6 Knot.
• Oystercatcher numbers have gone up to nearly 90 HERE where as Black-tailed Godwit has dropped right off <a href="https://ebird.org/barchart?r=L2577590&bmo=1&em...

What to take from it

Our local area is on an extreme fire risk warning.

Details worth keeping

I got on with watering everything as soon as I got back yesterday. So yesterday afternoon was spent just catching up in the garden. An adult Peregrine was out hunting over the spit at high tide.