Patching over gulls

Gulls or patch, gulls or patch. Being a bright morning the light at Cotham wouldn't have been great, so in the end I plumped for a visit to the patch, meaning I haven't done the gulls for 2 weeks now... 

Water levels have continued to rise at Collingham since last weekend, and Ferry Lane Lane is now a single waterbody again. Bobbing around on the choppy water (it was very windy today...) were 520 Wigeon, with several hundred Teal and 2 pairs of Pintails also. There were no Whoopers with the Mute clock to the west of the Trent, but the Silt Lagoon held 18 Redshanks and 3 drake Shelduck. A total of 26 Goldeneye were spread across the site, including 16 on Wharf Pit. 

Ferry Lane Lake

Besthorpe SSSI was  pretty birdless, as was Meering, but I did finally bag a couple of Skylarks (absent locally this far), with three in the fields looking towards Smithy Marsh, and another which flew across the access track; species number 83 for the Patchwork Challenge list. 

A flooded Fleet

Besthorpe Warren SSSI