Curling round to the west

The easterlies of last weekend brought in a final flourish in the form of 2 curlew sandpipers found by Erich Hediger on Tuesday night - pictures and write up here.  A yellow-legged gull brought some early flair to the gull roost on Monday afternoon and 15 little gulls were showy on the D reservoir on Tuesday with another today:

More pics on Dave's page here.  The best of the rest of the waders included:
Ruff - 1 on Monday the 26th on Watton NR
Little ringed plover - 1 on the 26th and 27th on South Marsh West
Common sand - 3 on the 26th D res / Watton, 2 SMW on the 27th,
Green sandpiper - 2 on Hempholme Meadow on the 27th
Dunlin - 2 on South Marsh West on the 27th
Greenshank - 1 on South Marsh West on the 27th

There's been a smattering since but a change to westerly winds immediately flushed most waders on and instead brought us migrating passerines presumably from within the UK with lots of willow warblers, whitethroats and blackcaps.  The main highlight being perhaps the only spotted flycatcher report of the year on the 28th at North Marsh - a continued sad decline for a species we had nesting on live cameras 4 years ago.  Another rarity too turned up in the form of the turtle dove n the southern site this morning.  Good to see both willow and marsh tit in D woods yesterday too.

Black necked grebe has been present every day on the D reservoir. North Marsh has again been the subject of Kingfishers - three individuals scrapping repeatedly in recent days - Alan Walkington has a picture of the hobby on Flickr which was today trying to exploit it but failed.  The other highlights were a pintail on Watton NR today and an osprey which flew south over O res before apparently turning up at Leconfield later in the morning.   Lots of butterflies in the week with clouded yellows still on the wing like this fine shot by Jeff Barker:

Tony Robinson sent us these of painted lady:

And gold spot:

A count by Martin and Karen recorded 720 butterflies across site on Monday and the year list for moths has now exceeded 350 for the year so far making it one of the best on record.  As ever all the updates including several firsts for site on his blog.

Reserve walk next Saturday at 10am, with (hopefully) the kingfisher walk next Sunday.  The event is book in advance - however we are currently experiencing problems with the phone at the reserve so please contact us via e-mail on richard.hampshire@yorkshirewater.co.uk to book a place.