Avocet Time at Upton

Thursday took us off to Upton Warren, primarily for our first views of the Avocets now that they have returned, from various forums we knew that they were now back in good numbers, it was just a shame that after a couple of days of glorious sunshine, that the only day we could get there was rather dull! But here are a few Avocet photos anyway,

Other birds at the Flashes at Upton were; Shelduck, Shoveler, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Black-headed Gull, Lapwing and a glimpse of a Curlew.
One of the many Lapwing

Walking back to the car park a couple of Goldcrest put in an appearance, but wouldn't give me a good view for a photo, this was the best I could do!

At the Sailing Pool we counted at least 10 Great Crested Grebe, all looked like they were pairing up and doing some courtship posturing, but no weed dancing yet!

We popped over to the Moors Pools and stopped at all the hides for a while, although it was fairly quiet, we added Tufted Duck, Cormorant and Little Grebe to the list of Waterfowl,

The feeders to the right of the concrete (Water Rail) hide were busy with Greenfinch, Reed Bunting, Tits and Dunnock with the odd Chaffinch showing up.

A couple of Canada Geese performed in front of the hide,

A pair of Bullfinch did show briefly, but thats about it apart from the Rats!

So 40 species in all today, with the Avocet bringing us up to 97 for the year.