A wet morning


The weather forecast suggested a partially cloudy morning with the outside possibility of a few spots of rain. They didn't get it quite right. I was at Beddington by 05.30hrs and spent four hours largely getting wet in proper rain. The soaking of the verdant vegetation meant that my walking along the overgrown footpaths also meant a soaking of my clothing, plus the copious transfer of grass seed. Oh well...

Most of the waders that had been present this past week had moved on, so that I recorded just single  Little Ringed Plover, Green Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper and Lapwing. One surprise was a juvenile Common Cuckoo that flapped through the dense vegetation on 100 Acre (image, taken in appalling light, above). There was also a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull on the Northern Lake (poorish pictures below, that show a few of the characteristic features of this species, such as inner primaries same tone as outer, the plain dark tertials edged white).



There were plenty of passerines, many young family parties, to be found across the farm, particularly on the mound, with tits, Linnets, Goldfinches and warblers (Reed, Sedge (below) and Whitethroat) being the most numerous.


Comments

Derek Faulkner said…
I was at my partner's in Surrey yesterday and we had no rain at all and a pleasant, warm and sunny afternoon. At 21.00 on a very warm and still evening as the sun was setting, we were at Castle Bottom nature reserve near Yately, watching Nightjars as they begun to come out in to the twilight.
15 July 2019 at 08:52
Steve Gale said…
Sounds like the perfect end to a summer’s day Derek
17 July 2019 at 10:25
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