Dawn – 10.30hrs. Pheasants, crows, robins, blackbirds, large groups of feeding redwings but no fieldfares today, chaffinches and lots of wrens. Hide one – 72 wigeon, 62 lapwing, 18 teal, 21 redshanks, Canada geese and a greylag goose. Snipe platform – shoveler 20, cettis and magpies. Seawall – short-eared owl perched 5 posts down towards the hide, flew off over lagoon 2 and watched hunting four more times before I left, ravens, starlings, 28 curlew, oystercatchers, shelduck, herring gulls, black-headed gulls and dunlin. Hide three – stonechats, reed buntings, 21 more widgeon, pied wagtails, mallards, 5passing cormorants, 3 mute swans (cygnets), goldfinches, female sparrowhawk and a single black-tailed godwit. Snipe platform – 2nd stop, mistle thrushes, 3 snipe and 5 skylarks calling. Hide two – 11 curlew, water rail calling, fem marsh harrier, 8 gadwall, 6 more black-tailed godwits, buzzard and woodpigeons. No report of the desert wheatear when I was there.
