TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER
The first day of October dawned grey and
overcast, with a fresh SE wind and above average temperatures. It stayed like
this for the remainder of the day, the forecast rain not arriving prior to
dusk.
I spent much of the morning at WILSTONE
RESERVOIR (TRING) where the only 'new' arrivals were 2 DUNLIN and a juvenile
RINGED PLOVER (both feeding on the exposed islands in the NW corner). Five
juvenile BLACK-TAILED GODWITS remained on the reed-fringed mud of the south
shore, along with 4 Common Snipe.
Still large numbers of waterbirds present
including 15 Great Crested Grebes, 4 Little Grebes (see pix), 11 Little Egrets,
8 Grey Heron, 20 Sinensis Cormorant, 52 Mute Swans (including
orange-ringed 679 initially ringed in Berkhamstead on 5 May 2012), 31 Greylag
Geese, 160 Mallard, 21 Gadwall, 330 Eurasian Wigeon, at least 6 NORTHERN
PINTAIL, 560 Common Teal, 152 Shoveler, 124 Tufted Duck, 211 Northern Pochard,
552 Coot and 25 Moorhens, whilst 216 Lapwing, 214 Black-headed Gull, 3
first-year Common Gull and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull completed the
inventory.
Otherwise, 3 Pied Wagtails, Stock Dove, 9
Woodpigeon and a roving feeding flock of 340 Common Starlings in fields in
Cemetery Corner. A pair of Collared Dove and 25 Jackdaw were in the vicinity of
Wilstone Great Farm.
I then headed north into BEDFORDSHIRE and
replaced Jim Gurney and Martin Palmer at BROOM GP. The juvenile LITTLE STINT was
showing well on a small muddy island with a Green Sandpiper (record shots below)
on GYPSY LANE EAST whilst a group of 3 SCANDINAVIAN ROCK PIPITS was performing
well on the west shoreline of the neighbouring PEACOCK'S LAKE (also illustrated
below).
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