Weather: Cool & cloudy. From 10:20am.
From the car-park & around the reserve with Kim: Long-Tailed Tit, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Goldfinch, Wren, Collared Dove, Pied Wagtail, Greenfinch, Blue Tit, Shoveler, Greylag Goose, Wigeon, Teal, Starling, Coot, Moorhen, Mallard, Chaffinch, Little Egret, Carrion Crow, Stonechat, Common Gull, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, Kestrel, Lapwing, Herring Gull, Black-Headed Gull, Grey Heron, Cetti's Warbler (heard) in the reeds near to the pylons, lone Pintail male amongst the other ducks, Gadwall, Meadow Pipit, Linnet. Most notable were three female pintail in a dyke adjacent to the main scrape, seen just after the male; attractive ducks now back in full post-eclipse plumage.
Heading out along the seawall: Cormorant, Great Black-Backed Gull, Shelduck, Rock Pipit on the river-side. Further along the seawall in some mixed scrub a bird perched high with its head into the wind looked much paler & with a stronger eye-stripe than the usual female or first winter stonechats which for me identified a Whinchat. However it flew off before I could a record shot as I had to fumble to change the camera's batteries. I wandered up a little further then headed back & again saw a perching 'chat-like bird in the same spot as before, & assumed it was the earlier bird however it was soon joined by a couple of others which were quickly identified as stonechats. Was one these birds the bird I had seen earlier & I mis-identified? This time I got a record shot, a record shot of a stonechat! I'm fairly certain the first bird was a Whinchat it was immediately striking in its difference but the later sightings did cast some doubt..I guess I'll have to see another one sometime to be sure of the tick.
37 species, 1 (possibly) new.
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