swans awake!

A busy weekend  at Welney just passed. Watching the swans at dawn, expecting them to fly out at first light. The frozen waters and cold temperatures meant that they were reticcent to move, and only started leaving in ones and twos after eight o'clock. Four Bean geese flew overhead as we watched with a group of visitors, and flocks of godwits were shaken into action by passing harriers. Peregrines buzzed the wash later on, and in the ensuing scramble, a few Dunlin and Curlew panicked amid the Wigeon and Teal. Along the water's edge smaller birds ignored the spectacle of the wildfowl and waders. Bearded Tits pinged unseen in the reeds, and a pair of Stonechats perched above Meadow Pipits and Snipe in the muddy fringes.

As the afternoon wears on, gulls begin to appear and gather out on the open water- many hundreds of Blackheaded and Commons, a Caspian with the Herrings and Lesser Black-backs, and a lone Glaucous Gull. Now the Barn Owl floats up and down the bank. All day the constant bugling and yapping has echoed across the wash.