Show Weekend

This weekend was our village show, so yesterday was mostly spent 'buffing my veg' and baking scones and cakes. I was like a cross between Alan Titchmarsh and Paul Hollywood!

I snook out yesterday afternoon, after the veg and baking was in the hands of the judges. The predicted 'fall' conditions hadn't happened and the bushes were quiet. I checked the big pools for waders, with East Chevington hosting white rumped, pec and curlew sands, there had to be a good wader at Druridge. There wasn't.

This curlew was very obliging.

First a bath

Then a stretch

Then a yawn

Then a wander

There was a few migrant passerines in the bushes, willow warbler, whitethroat, sedge warbler and blackcap.

Today was show dominated, so I didn't make it to Druridge until after 3pm. Dave Elliott had tipped me off about whinchats and a cuckoo at Druridge. I saw both the whinchats which were associating with a family of stonechats but not nearly as obliging. Two off the young stonechats looked like they weren't long out of the nest - third broods which I have missed?

record shot of whinchat

Adult male stonechat

juvenile stonechat - not long out of the nest

The cuckoo flew from the dunes into the bushes. It is very late for a cuckoo, presumably a late, locally bred individual?

144 Whinchat