An Easterly Easter

The Easter weekend was spent up north visiting friends and family, with a little bit of birding thrown in for good measure, making sure we were wrapped up against the bitter wind. A nostalgic morning out at one of our old stomping grounds, RSPB Leighton Moss, yielded a few year ticks, such as marsh tit, marsh harrier, avocet and spotted redshank, alongside good views of feeding snipe, 9 duck species and black tailed godwits.

 

Later on the same day we headed off to my brothers local patch, Aldcliffe marsh, and had 3 little ringed plover and our first wheatear and chiffchaff of the year. A walk down the river Wenning with my parents dog had 60+ golden plover, numerous wigeon, ringed plover and reed buntings.

Back home in Wales, an afternoon spent at Broadwater gave up 9 sandwich terns, 26 ringed plover, a single grey plover and lapwing, blackwits, redshank and curlew.

Still plenty of fieldfares around in the meadow in front of the house, along with a smattering of redwing, and our peanut butter loving badger population has risen to two individuals. As today has been warm and sunny, without that biting easterly, tonight could be a good night to sit with the window open and try to get a shot of them.
Our local dippers were busy nest building today, with mixed results. One struggled to get up into the site, only to drop its beakful of material when it finally did so. However, it carried on with the tenacity of that spider in the story of Robert the Bruce.