First little ringed plover of the year at the horse paddocks

This is the first of what will probably be a series of posts from a site that I am going to refer to as the horse paddocks. It's a place which is just a 10 minute drive from home but which has a surprisingly decent selection of birds. However it's not a place which I want to attract too much attention to so I won't be giving out any more information than this as to it's exact location.

This was my second visit of the spring and it came up trumps with my first little ringed plover of the year with male and female birds present. This is my earliest ever record of the species in the UK, beating the previous record by five days.

Also today in amongst the 200 or so black-headed gulls, two cracking summer plumaged Mediterranean gulls. In summer plumage this has got to be the most beautiful of all gull species.

There's still a decent population of yellowhammers in the area, and other farmland birds such as skylarks.