Briefly Birding!

Another day to squeeze in what little time I could on the birding front yesterday. 

I spun a coin and heads came up for Conder Pool, I spun another and Cockersands came up heads, and spun again and Bank End came up....well there's a surprise!

Migrant Hawker. Pete Woodruff.

I'll deal first with the terrible photograph I took of the Migrant Hawker I saw at Cockersands. Butterflies noted were, 2 Red Admiral and a 'few' Small Tortoiseshell.

Greenshank Antonio Puigg  

The big surprise at Cockersands was a Greenshank on Plover Scar which held little more than 260 waders at high tide with estimates of, 150 Oystercatcher, 50 Redshank, 45 Dunlin, 15 Turnstone, and 2 Ringed Plover. I saw at least 6 Wheatear difficult to be accurate with mobile birds back and forth. At Bank End at least 100 Pied Wagtail with a few obvious White Wagtail seen.

I moved no further than Conder Pool at Conder Green to note an increase in the number of 7 Little Grebe, a Great-crested Grebe, and a single Common Sandpiper.

The Conder Common Terns.

Common Tern. Martin Jump.

Yesterday I saw two young Common Tern on Tern Island, one decidedly a bigger bird than it's sibling, and was the one fed by an adult with a fish on one occasion.

Common Tern. Martin Jump. 

This is what I'm hoping to see soon at Conder Green, though not too sure about the smaller one, but I reckon the other will have fledged by this time next week.

Thanks to Antonio for the Greenshank, and to MJ for the Common Terns.