Brian and I had a flyer this morning, getting away from Grimsby at just after 8.00 am, parking up in the north car park at Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve just after 9.00 am. Morning coffee is somewhat of a ritual for Brian but, as the cafe, doesn't open until 10.00 am, we had time to visit the roadside hides overlooking Jackson's and Croft Marsh and Tennyson's Sands with their respective lagoons. More or less the first bird we heard was a great spotted woodpecker which augured well for the day. Swallows were swooping around us hunting for insects and it was good to see house martins among them; only my second sighting of this species for the year. The expected spoonbills were present, as well as good numbers of avocet and black-tailed godwit. There were a lot of little grebes about as well, which was a joy. However, the bird of the day for me was a greenshank and we saw a second later in the day. A good start; by coffee we had seen 30 species despite the gloomy beginning on the weather front.
After coffee and cake, I left the camera in the car and we set out across the marsh for the beach. It was good to see swathes of purple sea lavender covering the salt marsh, always a pleasure; who needs Provencal lavender fields? Amazingly we saw no skylarks or meadow pipits, perhaps they are quiet following the breeding season. On the beach we first heard and then saw a large flock of noisy sandwich terns, nesting completed and their journey to southern climes already begun.
Calling in at the roadside hides on the way back to the centre we found both green and common sandpiper and little grebes with some young chicks still with their striped heads.
The day was completed with the short walk to Lil's hut where we saw a pair of egrets which may or may not have been the reported cattle egrets. Sadly, although I could see the birds through the 'scope, there was too much magnified heat haze for a positive ID so they didn't make the list for the day which came to 41 species. An excellent day made better by the skies clearing in the afternoon to give warm sun.
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