Local patch blitz

Lade - warm, dry, sunny, e 3 - Spent the morning on the local patch checking every nook and cranny. A circumnavigation of the lakes took in stubble and tilled fields by the airport for grounded migrants: 5 Corn and 10 Reed Buntings, 15 Skylarks, 10 Mipits, 5 Pied Wagtails, 2 Wheatears and a sparrow flock with 8 Tree Sparrows. Stonechats, Goldfinches and Linnets were everywhere, plus a few Siskins and Redpolls overhead. At the north end 100 Lapwings, 20 Golden Plovers, 12 Curlews and 6 Mistle Thrushes present amongst hundreds of Woodpigeons, Stock Doves, gulls, Starlings and corvids on a recently drilled field. A decent raptor count comprised 5 Marsh Harriers, 5 Kestrels, 4 Buzzards, 3 Sparrowhawks and a Merlin.
The willow swamp and ponds were alive with Blackbirds, Robins, Dunnocks, Wrens, Great, Blue and Long-tailed Tits, Chiffchaffs, Goldcrests and Blackcaps, 5 singing Cetti`s Warblers, Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers, calling Water Rails, a Kingfisher and 10 Swallows over. The lakes continue to attract large numbers of Coots, grebes and dabblers, while a gull roost on north lake harboured 2 Med Gulls.
The beach had all the usual shorebirds and gulls, 55 Sandwich Terns, 3 Brent Geese and a marauding Arctic Skua, not a bird I often see here.
I`m not much of a lister but a quick tally up from this mornings effort revealed 83 species, not bad for a morning stroll...

                                            Dark Mullein, Lade

                               1st winter and adult Mediterranean Gulls, Lade

An afternoon run out with CP commenced at Dengemarsh where we jammed the Common Crane in flight en-route to hayfield 3. Galloways was quiet with just a few Stonechats and Kestrels of note. On Walland Marsh, Tree Sparrows were seen at Midley and several Marsh Harriers and Buzzards on the wetland, but as the wind picked up small birds were hard to come by. We finished off at ARC where  2 Red-crested Pochards were still at the far end by the pines along with 250 Mallards, plus 2 each of Buzzard and Marsh Harriers, Sparrowhawk and several Chiffchaffs within a tit flock.