Aerial display team

It felt a little bit more like Spring today. There was some warmth in the sun, if you were out of the cool wind coming off the sea and the temperature reached a balmy eight degrees.

The warmth and sunshine was enough to encourage the lapwings on the Budge fields to start displaying again. They were displaying in early March, but the cold spell put thoughts of breeding on hold I think. Today, though, display was in full swing and I spent a nice hour just watching them.

Lapwing acrobatics

And the crow got some stick (deservedly so!)

Elsewhere on the patch, there was a complete lack of new migrants arriving. My 'hoped for' species not made it this far yet. There has been a decrease in the number of winter visitors though, with both teal and wigeon numbers much reduced and only three curlew.

At the 'haul-road flash' there were dozen ringed plovers and redshank and a single dunlin - probably all passage birds. On the beach there were 21 sanderling dodging the crowds of human visitors.

Sanderling - one of 21

A long-tailed duck was on the big pool.

So no new additions to the patch year-list, but a quality days birding nonetheless.