Marsh Tits in Wellow Wood

A stop at Kilvington first thing this morning produced a party of 13 Dunlin, plus single Swift and Common Tern. This was followed by a walk round Annesley Pit Top (aka Newstead and Annesley Pit Top) for work, which was a nice change from the office, and produced 6 Swifts (apparently arriving yesterday, tallying nicely with the birds at Collingham and Girton), plus a Common Sand.

After work I had a walk round Wellow Wood; plants were my focus, but I had Marsh Tits at three different locations in the wood (which is big, so there are probably lots more). This allowed me to check out something which I'd been reminded about recently when reading Birding Frontiers (see here) - the presence of a pale spot (or smudge) on the base of the upper mandible and its use as an ID feature. This feature was clearly visible on the two birds I saw well, along with a buffy suffusion across the rear of the pale check patch. Interesting - see the November 2009 issue of BB for more.

Wellow Wood

By now it was getting a bit late to go to Collingham or Girton, so I made a quick visit to Cotham Flash. There were at least 10 Yellow Wags in the grass between the carpark and Pykett's Pond, with 2 smart male Wheatears in the paddock. There was nothing on the flash itself, but the field pool held pairs of Redshank, Ringed Plover (1 sitting?), Oystercatcher, Shoveler and Gadwall, a head count of at least 10 Lapwing (= 5 pairs?), and a single White Wag with a few Pieds.