Grey Plover and Goosander

Totals from the last couple of days include two Little Stint, three Curlew Sandpiper, three Spotted Redshank (2 ad. & 1 juv.), 67 Greenshank, 364 Redshank, 669 Black-tailed Godwit, eight Bar-tailed Godwit, 196 Knot, 111 Dunlin, 396 Curlew, and one each of Whimbrel, Water Rail, Snipe and Grey Plover, the latter species being the first I've seen since being here.

Grey Plover

Today there were two Sandwich Tern and a Common Tern fishing over the estuary, though always very distant! The Common Tern picked a series of small fish from the surface of the water and ate them in flight.

While scanning the estuary with my binoculars, I picked up a red head Goosander flying right towards me. It flew right over the hide and seemed to arc round to the east slightly.

A ringed Black-tailed Godwit has been present since 8th September. It was ringed in northern Iceland as a chick on 12th July this year.

Colour ringed Black-tailed Godwit

This Black-headed Gull has also been around for a while. It has a weird beak abnormality on the upper mandible. It's obviously still able to feed with it since it has made it to adulthood.

Black-headed Gull with beak abnormality