As yesterday was a fine looking day with plenty of sunshine and, for the most part, just light winds a few hours birding was called for and, feeling lazy, WWT was an easy choice. In the event of weather change or absence of birds it's a nice place to sit and catch up on a massive backlog of reading matter and coffee.
As it was the weather played ball and there were even a few birds, enough to justify a Bird Track entry (see below).
The Goosander was still present earlier but no-one I spoke to had seen it so either well tucked in or out on the river.
The male Peregrine flew in and perched high up on the hanger and didn't move for about two hours; the female was harder to find being in the largest tree to break the skyline that they sometimes favour.
Different species from last week were Glossy Ibis (1), Cattle Egrets (c25), Lesser Redpoll(2), Sparrowhawk and heard only Water Rail.
The ibis was day-roosting with Egrets and almost impossible to see whilst looking into the low winter sun but eventually did a nice anticlockwise circuit of the pond before alighting on an island.
Two Kingfishers were very noisy but didn't sit up on show like last week.
Again, like last week, no chance of harriers etc with a 2pm departure - maybe one of the January late opening days will be an opportunity for them.
Chiffchaffs were obvious and noisy and I'm sure there were more onsite than I recorded.
Still plenty of wasp activity with a queen being relocated out of the restaurant by another visitor and others buzzing around the hides. A Common Darter was a surprise and, I'm certain, my latest ever.
https://app.bto.org/birdtrack/pubcon/shared?subId=SUB50963269
The view from Lapwing hide and the impressive success of the Sand Martin holes.
