"Am-well" surprised!!

Hello, hello!! Ferreting Fynn here!! Today, remember how I was talking about migrants in my last post? Well this post is about more migrants we saw at Amwell nature reserve. I highly recommend this reserve as it does have some stunning species! From barn owls to bitterns and terns too little ringed plovers, it is a top spot for bird watching. Also being a great spot for passage migrants e.g black tern and little gull!! Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures so you may need to look up some of the birds we mention.

On Wednesday this week, we decided to walk our Grans dog as I mentioned in the post about the mandarin, she can't often go out. So we decided to take him to Amwell again as we have taken him there before. When we pulled up, I was feeling lucky on this trip because last time we went we really didn't see anything. Also we were looking out for the 2 little ringed plovers that had been sighted on the day we were going!! Walking by the canal, we kept hearing  Cetti's warbler " Chip, chip shop, chippy chip shop!!" My dad even tried to find the bird, even though I told him that they're almost impossible to spot. Further up the path, we saw 2 swallows together probably hunting, but that doesn't even match my experience at Fairlands. Finally, we made it to the viewing point.

There were lots of black headed gulls, of course, lots of various wildfowl, three Oystercatcher but no little ringed plovers. Probably about 30 mins into it, I could hear a very distinctive call of the sedge warbler but at the time, I didn't know if it was a sedge warbler or a reed warbler!! My strongest thought was that it was a sedge warbler as 2 were sighted last week, I put that to one side and carried on birding. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, a swallow shaped bird flew onto the mudflat in front of us and I said softly yet very excited," Little ringed plover right there!!" As the scope was in front of me, I tried to angle the scope at the plover, but then another one flew in and I tried to angle it at the pair as they were close together. As they kept flying round the lake, I kept angling the scope at it/them, but half way through that, my dad said that he could see something flying in and out of the reeds near us. Eventually I did see something that looked like a sedge warbler (and I was about to find out I was right) then it darted to the nearby bush which I ran down the path to get a better view and even better, the path extended out almost into the bush so of course I went down there, got my bins out and there before me was a Sedge warbler. Even though I was about 3 metres away from him( I say him because he was singing really loud and probably trying to find a mate) he didn't even flinch!! I one time saw 2 sedge warbler feeding their young!! So I am well truly surprised.

Have a good one!! Stay safe!!

Ferreting Fynn.