First Visit to Upton for 2018

Had a very pleasant but very cold afternoon at Upton on Thursday with out friends Tim & Wendy.
We started at the flashes, parking at the Sailing Club, the Sailing Club, as we walked down the steps onto the reserve, this little chappy presented itself;
Goldcrest

followed quickly by this one;
Wren

then a few yards further on;
Treecreeper

A great start! We carried on down to the main hide overlooking the flashes. There were about 300 (according to the log book, I didn't count them) Lapwing about, at one time they were spooked and all took to the air,

It was fairly quiet and cold! We did see three Snipe settled down on one of the scrapes, not showing that well. Otherwise there were plenty of Teal about,

but not much else. A Buzzard did put in an appearance and moved from fence post to fence post over the far shore before disappearing. So after an hour or so and a coffee we ventured over to the Moors Pools, we checked out the new hide, very nice, this was our first visit since it opened, although at this time of year there wasn't much to see, so we carried on to the top hide and had a late lunch and more coffee.

I was please that the Whooper Swan was still there as this was a first for us at Upton. We added to our duck tally, with Shoveler, Shelduck, Pochard and a solitary Tufted Duck. Like the Flashes earlier there were also plenty of Teal and Mallard about. There were also quite a few cormorants too.

The light at this stage was very poor with the sun dropping in front, so I didn't bother with any photos from here. We had planned to go over to the other side of the Moors to the concrete hide, but with the light fading and also because we had got very cold sitting around we decided to head home.

A quiet but lovely afternoon was had and a good start to our birding year.