Sunny Spoonbills
We've had another two Spoonbills arrive on the reserve, dropping in late yesterday to the Top New Piece, as viewed from the Zeiss Hide. The birds were still present this morning before moving to the South Lake around 8:20am, best viewed from the Hogarth Hide.
South Lake Hides
Yesterday was a busy day on this part of the reserve with a great selection of birds present including one of the first-winter Little Gulls, a partially summer plumaged Spotted Redshank and the drake Garganey along with the usual other species. Today's star attraction are the two Spoonbills. Also on the wader scrape were 218 Black-tailed Godwits, 30 Avocet and a handful of Shoveler. A Common Gull was amongst the Black-headed Gulls but there was no sign of the Little Gull or any Mediterranean Gulls, yet!
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Holden Tower and Walkway
Five Cranes were on the Tack Piece, best viewed from the Robbie Garnett Hide. The scrape still has a good number of Shoveler present with 42 counted this morning along with a few Gadwall and Shelduck. A pair of Wigeon are also lingering.
Out on the Dumbles were two Buzzards, including one very pale bird. Several Lapwing are continuing to display across the saltmarsh whilst at least two Skylarks were singing this morning. A total of 64 Shelduck were on the river.
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Zeiss Hide
The departure of the Spoonbills to the South Lake left 30 Avocet, 36 Shelduck, 2 Oystercatcher, 3 Ruff and 4 Redshank on the scrape. At least two Cetti's Warblers were singing from the reedbed, as were two Reed Bunting. A Little Egret was on patrol in the Bottom New Piece but there was no sign of yesterday's Cattle Egret, which was presumably one of the long-staying birds from the Frampton area just up the river.
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