Mediterranean at WOW

A walk along the coast on Wednesday produced an arctic tern fishing round the yachts in the Marina and boosted the patch list to 65. There was also a whitethroat singing in a different location to the previous one. Bird song is starting to die down although the blackcaps and wrens are still going strong. The garden has fledgling great tits and coal tits and the grey squirrel has returned. Battle has been joined and the feeder moved.

WOW was very quiet on Thursday as the tide was low, there were only 2 lapwing, 5 blackwit and 3 shelduck. The swans are down to 3 cygnets and the gulls and terns make up the great bulk of the birds. We only managed 22 species but one of them was a second summer Mediterranean gull. This proved a hit with the RSPB regional managers who were meeting there, especially the Midlands rep who struggles with gulls. Suffice to say he was a bit excited! There were three redpolls on the feeders including a very brightly coloured male who was very flighty. Hopefully I will get a shot next week. Water levels held up thanks to last weekend's cloudbursts, but we still need serious rain or the tern islands will be tern platforms.

65  Arctic tern

Med gull

Med gull

Common tern