two wings good, four wings bad

No, stop that! stop that at once- it's not in the Ely10 and it's not even a bird! This insectology is getting out of hand- and it's making us forget that there's still birds out there to look at- and you don't have to leave the Ely 10 to see them, let alone the county. Yes, I know its hot and slow going along the country lanes and arid fields, with only the odd squeak of a juvenile Blue tit and soporific Woodpigeon to remind us that not everything that flies in the lazy summer is a butterfly..... but the wetlands are just starting to transform from wildfowl creche to autumnal migration service station.
A visit to Welney this weekend, with its welcoming and knowledgeable staff, proved to be most rewarding. Even as the last Lapwing chicks still pottered along the muddy edge like dirty cotton-wool puffs, four Green Sandpipers appeared and started poking around the margins, fresh from their flight from scandinavia, and no doubt still with some way to go. In the middle of the pond in front of the main hide a growing group of Black-tailed Godwits fed, loafed and cackled in the sunlight.The last gasp of the spring breeding season is barely over before the breath of wind ushers in a new story of the transience and distant travel of birds that we will call ours for a short while.