Conder Pool continues to oblige when Sundays single became a double with 2 Common Tern present. Other interest was, the high concentration of Avocet which continues to increase, and the season getting off to a good start.
Little Ringed Plover Conder Pool. Pete Woodruff.
I saw just one Little Ringed Plover. The Black-tailed Godwit remain in decent number, some of which are well advanced into stunning breeding plumage. The Greylags now have seven goslings in tow.
The Knot also remain in numbers not seen on Conder Pool before, their status here is at best an occasional visitor in single figures, some of these birds are attaining their breeding pale brick-red plumage.
In the creeks, a 2nd summer Mediterranean Gull was with Black-headed Gulls, 4 Greenshank, and a Common Sandpiper, and a wander around the circuit had a Cetti's Warbler briefly heard, a Sedge Warbler, Chiffchaff, and Reed Bunting.
At Cockersand, the star of the show was seen, when a Reed Bunting caught my eye coming out of a reed lined ditch, I saw another bird distant perched upright, and looked a bigger bird than the one I was hoping it would be, but climbing over the gate and walking through the field to get closer, I found it was a bit of Cockersand magic to make my day, it was a brilliant male Whinchat.
This was my first Whinchat at Cockersand since the last one 4 years ago on 23 April 2018.
Other notes include, 2 Raven, and after seeing small flighty groups several times, 10 Linnet were seen along the headland, from where I saw 2 Wheatear, a White Wagtail, and up to 40 Eider which were off Sunderland Point. In the 3 hours at Cockersand, I saw only 3 Swallow north.