Jack The Nipper

It was much milder, calmer and drier this morning when I did my rounds of the Aldcliffe patch.
The clear highlight was the discovery of a pair of wee jack snipe with 5 common snipe at Snipe Bog. 

(L-R) 2 redwing, a mistle thrush & a fieldfare

The other main thing of note today was the number of thrushes around - not huge amounts but a good steady scattering. Blackbirds were particularly numerous while song thrush, mistle thrush, redwing and fieldfare were all present in varying numbers.

Once again the marsh drew a blank; there was no sign of any Canada or greylag geese and as a result no attendant white-fronts for the second day at least.
The 700 or so pink-footed geese were still in fields to the east of the river, though slightly further away on the drumlins.
A good flock of feeding waders around the Flood included 120ish curlew plus plenty of redshank and a few oystercatcher.
A sparrowhawk was seen carrying its breakfast and a kestrel was hunting around the maize fields.

I'm not surprised to see that Cetti's warbler is leading the charts in the 'Next New Bird for Aldcliffe' poll, though I'm surprised no-one has chipped in with any better suggestions than mine...
It's a pity the tip has closed down as we could have realistically expected a Caspian gull at some point. How about a flyover bee-eater? I've been expecting one of those to grace Aldcliffe airspace for the best part of 25 years!

Jon