Sunday, 8 August 2010

gulls et al

Llanon for the high tide this morning and, at last, sunshine! Wheatear on the beach, whitethroat plus juv at Lime kilns, plenty of sand martin activity at the cliff including a house martin that was swooping up to the cliff with the sandies...confused?
22 eclipse or female Mergansers/Goosanders flew North at 7:15am, did anyone else see them to establish which they were?
1 whimbrel,14 curlew,57 oystercatchers inc the whitish one, 18 ringed plover,2 dunlin and 1 turnstone.
Sandwich tern with juv. amongst 60+ meds and 20+ black headeds. 5 birds were ringed,4 with colour rings which I will report in. Med Gull fanatics in France and Belgium are reading hundreds of rings as the birds travel down the coast of N Europe; it took me about an hour to read 4! The birds were preening furiously and the ring is always join side on, if you know what I mean.
Pleasure to see a couple of common blues amongst the beach side flowers.