North Wall

A mid-morning start at the North Wall today, where I found "Ratty" to be still resident in the sluice. The very low water levels mean that it is difficult for him to jump out of the water next to the metal pilings, it took at least three attempts before he finally made the safety of the bank. I also flushed a Kingfisher from the sluice gate but despite a long wait he never returned. On the pool there were few birds, Redshank, Common Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Snipe, Spotted Redshank and several Lapwings.  

 Today was an attempt to obtain better shots of the Green Sandpipers - not entirely successful as the bird was somewhat sensitive to our loud chatter.

Two unusual birds flew in, I had no idea what they were, dark with white wing patches, further investigation revealed they are the itinerant Cape Shelducks that Trevor reported on his blog yesterday 



For comparison  - a pair in WWT Arundel



Two fine drakes

Really nice to catch up with Trevor and Ian, I suspect we did more gassing than birding but a least we put the world to rights.  


A quick visit to the flooded field gave Green Sandpiper and a lone Greenshank amongst other, more usual, suspects


All in all a slow but still enjoyable day