Grebes

Lade - warm, dry and sunny, E4 - An early morning check of the local patch, with the emphasis on breeding birds, produced good numbers of Little and Great Crested Grebes out on the water with their young, plus four broods of Tufted Ducks. The reed beds were alive with juvenile Reed Warblers, but there was no sign of any fledged Cuckoos. Two Green Sandpipers around the margins of south lake and Sand Martins over were evidence of ongoing passage. In all the years I`ve lived here I`ve not seen the vegetation so shrivelled up, even the brambles have died back and some of the trees are already shedding leaves as a precaution against the drought. Needless to say everything is dead on the shingle ridges; grasses, gorse, broom all tinder dry and crisp-like.

                                  Grebes and Tufties, Lade

                                 Sunbathing Fox, willow swamp

After a call in at the Obs to check for any moths and a chat with DW it was onto Kerton quarry for a high tide visit. No roosting waders were present but a large flock of mixed gulls contained 100 Sandwich Terns which was great to see considering their struggle with bird flu. The bird reserve was pretty much the same as yesterday with a few passage Little Ringed Plovers and Common Sandpipers, four Glossy Ibises on ARC, four Cattle Egrets in Boulderwall fields and plenty of Sand Martins over.

                                 Mixed gull and tern flock, Kerton quarry