A Trickle of Warblers

I haven't managed to get out to the Mill Lakes as much as I wanted to this month, so that was the agenda for this morning. It was quite windy over the Pit Tip Top at sunrise, and the first notable sighting was a large immature gull - probably Lesser Black-backed - heading north-west over my head. A male Kestrel was battling with the winds over Farmer Fox's Cow Field, and a couple of other large scruffy gulls were over too, but none that I could see well enough to identify.

At the Mill Lakes, the Reedbed Boardwalk had one, or possibly two, Bullfinch, but I was unsure of its sex as the colouring seemed to be between a typical male and female, being closer to a female. The wing bar and black crown were barely visible due to its moult. Walking on to the Peninsula, a Green Woodpecker flushed from feeding on the grass, and several small finch flocks were bobbing away from me before I had chance to get a good look.

A group of eight Gadwall [five male and three female] were together at north end of the lakes, and later I saw a few more at the far side, but they were possibly from the same group. Five Teal were lingering around the Mud Island - all of them female*. The numbers of Black-headed Gull seemed to be down on my last visit, and a count of 42 confirmed this. Amongst them in the shallows was a single Grey Heron , but a gunshot-like sound flushed everything from the north end of the lake, including the Heron.


Along the Back Ride, I had two or three more sightings of a Green Woodpecker, with two or more seen in total. Mid-way along far bank of the lake, a tit flock consisting mainly of Long-tailed Tit was moving through. Plenty of warblers were still around, including a fresh looking male Blackcap, a male Chiffchaff was seen singing, and a group of three or more Willow Warbler were calling around there too.

Back down near the Vehicle Bridge, I picked up the streaky juvenile Great Crested Grebe in tow with one of its parents again. A Grey Heron , presumably the one that had flown off in this direction earlier was on the bank opposite the Reedbed. The walk home was uneventful, but a juvenile Goldfinch at Dawson's Corner was - surprisingly, my first of the day.

* A more-recent visit showed that I may have mistakenly sexed eclipse males as females.