Since the excitement of last week which brought the first spoonbills in 20 years to the flash, followed a day later by my first ever July black terns, things have quietened down significantly and settled into a more traditional July pattern.
It's entirely down to the weather. Sunny, warm, calm days with a westerly air flow such as we have now are useless for birding at this time of year at Pennington Flash. Last week we had drizzle and south easterlies and they are conditions which produce the goods. Exciting birds at the flash usually coincide with a good soaking on the ruck.
There's at least a couple of common sandpipers about, and a summer plumage dunlin has been seen a few times, but none of these have been particularly easy. At least one little egret is occasionally seen and the two Egyptian geese continue to frequent the car park, but if it wasn't for the continued presence of common terns, birding at the flash for the past few days would probably best be described as dull.
The terns are a reminder of better things to come and they keep you on your toes because there's always the possibility of something unusual dropping in, such as arctic, Sandwich or little tern, or dare we dream, a roseate or even a Caspian tern
Common terns don't breed at Pennington Flash, but family parties do pass through in late summer and it's great to watch the adults fishing and then feeding the juveniles. The largest family I've seen so far this summer has included three juveniles. It's interesting to watch them, when the parent brings a fish back. The juveniles don't seem to squabble about who gets the fish, more often ones screams to be fed whilst the others watch and wait their turn.
A couple of days ago there were 200 swifts at the flash and very few hirundines, but now most of the swifts have passed through and hirundines have reached around 200 birds, mainly sand martins.
Oh well, rain and south easterlies are forecast overnight and into tomorrow, fingers crossed......
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