Dawn – 11.30hrs. Rooks, kingfisher (Paul only), 2 buzzards (one light-morph), skylarks 8 passing over quite high, mute swans with 7 cygnets, 3 chiffchaffs in the hedgerow, female marsh harrier and 1 juv gt black-backed gull. Redshank Platform – 15 knot, 3 grey plovers, 415 dunlin (losing their black bellies now), 4 ruff, 51 ringed plovers, siskins overhead, 4 little egrets, small groups of swallows (averaging 15-20 per group) with some house martins mixed in, 5 common snipe, 46 shelduck (more over the sea wall), glossy ibis (flew off towards Uskmouth around 0900hrs), 3 gadwall, 2 greenshank, 41 teal and ravens. Snipe Platform – 343 black-tailed godwits (including the 2013 Solent ringed bird), 62 redshanks, 22 more knot, 1 water rail feeding along the edge of the reeds and a juv curlew sandpiper mixed in with some dunlin. Hide 3 – 172 curlew (6 of which were ringed birds) with 9 bar-tailed godwits mixed in, 18 avocet which came in over the seawall, 1 heron, female kestrel and a big movement of meadow pipits along the fence lines in excess of 200+.
