Blue skies tell lies

Gorgeous blue skies belied freezing cold air today at Marshside – it looked great, but the temperature told a different story.
A bit of a blocker on much migration, although two Goldcrests and a Chiffchaff were in the bushes on the south side of the Sandplant, and frequent Red Tailed Bumblebees, Lesser Celandine and Coltsfoot teased that spring was around somewhere.
A pair of Avocets were cosying up on the island in front of Sandgrounders Hide – I can hear the clatter of a bazillion unnecessarily unsilenced shutters already.
Small parties of Mipits were moving north, but most were birds already displaying on territory, and the few alba wags about were all Pieds.

Nicest of all were the two Ravens circling and croaking above the sandplant before they slid off inland as if in the direction of the ghost of the gasometer.
Quite a lot of Pink Feet still on the outer marsh, moving about restlessly in small groups, but the wibbly wobbly (fake) heat haze made it hard to get good views of them.
Perhaps 1,000 birds still, maybe more.

Met Pete Kinsella and Mark Nightingale who were enduring Water Pipit pain up at Crossens Outer, the pipits up there being as unobliging as ever.
A superb Peregrine tiercel that ripped through close in was much easier on the eye – completely different head pattern to the freak I saw a week or so ago too…