Picked up Bazzo this morning and we drove over to Martin Mere, as a tornado vortex cloud thingy formed at the base of the dark front that later dump tonnes of water on us.
The whirly thing never touched the ground, but it looked cool - birding in Tornado Alley!
Before the torrential rain we watched two adult Green Sandpipers from the United Utilities "bird shaped" hide, with the usual Buzzard, Avocets etc there too.
Nice to see the Green Sands - autumn is on the way!
Loadsa Tree Sparrows about, plus Sedgies, Reed Warbler and good numbers of Swifts hawking low.
Vinsons and Sunleys Marsh were quiet, apart from a few young Redshank doing more than passable imitations of Wood Sandpipers (I'm saying nothing), the inevitable Avocets (14 pairs this year) and young and a Stock Dove.
Ho hum.
A Kingfisher between there and the Kingfisher hide was fleeting, but I managed one half decent out of focus shot....
From the Mere, tootled back over the mosses to Marshside and couldn't resist a quick look.
Bee Orchids still blooming, and Ruddy Duck still on the pools, but not much else - although lots of Swifts hawking low here too.
Bumped into the freaky dark plumaged Golden Plover Neill found in the week, clearly an injured/sick bird, it really does look odd at first glance.
Aberrant dark feathering on the back is very strange, I don't think I've ever seen such a dark Golden Plover.
As you can see, the amount of black on the belly and flanks is wrong for American or even Pacific Golden Plover, and dark as the back may appear, when it flies it has a Golden Plover call and creamy white axillaries.
Interesting bird though - its tail is damaged, so its primaries look long too!
Unfortunately, it keeps falling over, it's in pathetic condition really, poor thing.
Apart from that, one of the adult Little Owls was checking things out from a handy vantage point after the rains, so I got a distant "blob" record shot.
Good to see them successfully rearing a family in the area.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Dorset Dipper wrote...
Glad to see I'm not the only one who's done that Redshank/Wood Sandpiper thing.
Posted by: Dorset Dipper | June 24, 2007 6:23 PM