Little Wonders

Highlights from a couple of hours getting drenched around Aldcliffe this morning included a 'new' little ringed plover chick at the The Flood.
The plover was with an adult and appeared to be fairly recently fledged. Also present were 2 adults with a well-grown youngster - presumably the same ones that have been around for a while. A lapwing with two sizeable chicks made for a pleasant sight.
I could only see two of the lapwing chicks at the Wildfowlers' Pools but the vegetation was pretty dense and could easily have been hiding one or two others.
Little grebe breeding success seems unremarkable thus far with just a single chick being fed by an adult at Freeman's Pools. A lone stock dove and little egret were the only other birds of note there.
It was fairly quiet all around the patch, as is to be expected at this time of year, with this kind of weather.
Hopefully we'll start to see more post-breeding waders starting to move through in the coming weeks; green sandpipers have usually made an appearance by now and there's always the chance of a wood sandpiper or something scarcer still. And it's worth checking the gulls on the estuary as Mediterranean and yellow-legged gulls could show up among the commoner species.

I spent a couple of days up at the Malham Cove peregrine watchpoint earlier this week. The two youngsters have now fledged and they often put on a great show as the adults show the growing falcons how to hunt. A decent supporting cast includes multiple redstarts, spotted flycatchers and green woodpeckers among other things.
 
Jon