A Sarnie at lunchtime

With the results of the EU referendum still taking up a lot of space in my head (what an absolute disaster, especially for our wildlife...), I tried to focus on other things with some birding on Saturday. The Great Crested Grebes and Coots are having a great breeding season on Ferry Lane Lake, with young birds and nests all over the place. More notable was the fact that the Egyptian Geese have about nine chicks - the first breeding by this species at Collingham. A Turtle Dove purring by the works site tempted me into visiting an area I rarely look at, where I was rewarded with a female Mandarin hanging out with a few Mallards - a patch yeartick, and the first such in exactly a month.

Today I had a call from John Ellis at lunchtime to say there was a Sandwich Tern at Ferry Lane Lake. I bombed over there (having an 80th birthday party to get to in the afternoon!), and found the tern still present; a full-on patch (and Notts) tick.