A whisp of snipe
A whisp is one of the collective nouns for Snipe, but it sounds so pitiful and small that I think we need to come up with a new noun for the group that were seen today from the Zeiss Hide. No less than 168 were on show around the shoreline and reedbed fringes, with 104 of these crammed in to one small penninsular. Scan the edges of the shoreline and see how many you can see. The current claimed high count is 186 birds.
South Lake Hides
By contrast, after having over 70 Snipe on show from the Hogarth Hide this morning on a single bird was seen. From the Discovery Hide on the deep lake were 104 Tufted Duck, 16 Gadwall, 63 Pochard and 7 Cormorant along with a few Teal and Shoveler. Work taking place on the access track reduced numbers on the scrape but at least 300 Lapwing were still present.
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Rushy Hide & Peng Observatory
The Bewick's Swan herd have taken to remaining on the Tack Piece of most of the day and getting rather late at arriving back on the Rushy for the feed with only a dozen present this morning.
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Robbie Garnett Hide
Out on the Tack Piece were 27 Shelduck, 85 Curlew, 67 Black-tailed Godwit, 27 Ruff, 14 Redshank and a few thousand Lapwing. Two Cranes flew over towards the Dumbles before turning back and heading for the goose fields to the north. Bewick's Swans numbered 68 birds with more arriving from the river throughout the morning.
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Holden Tower
The Red-breasted Goose and 3 White-fronted Geese were with the Barnacle flock on the Dumbles and to the north at Mid Point were 2 Stonechat sat on the fence line, viewable from the tower. Below the hide a Water Rail was feeding in the flood water on the Summer Walkway path with another at the Willow Hide. At least 45 White-fronted Geese were to the north of the Tack Piece with a mix of Canada and Greylag. A single Oystercatcher was on the pool outside the Knott Hide and a Little Stint was on the Dumbles scrape amongst the Wigeon.
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Zeiss Hide
Apart from the 168 Snipe around the shoreline, other numbers were relatively low but included a few hundred Teal and Lapwing, with a few Golden Plover amongst them. A Peregrine was over the river.
