THURSDAY 15 AUGUST
Much cooler than of late with a showery
westerly airstream dominating the weather
Not a lot happening today, other than 5
Common Redstarts and 8 Spotted Flycatchers on the Quainton Hills (per Tim
Watts), a Common Redstart at Hardmead (Rob Norris) and a couple of Greenshanks
at Manor Farm.
I decided to return to COLLEGE LAKE BBOWT
where the juvenile RUFF was present for its second day. Although favouring the
dense clusters of Purple Loostrife to hide and feed in, it eventually flew from
the spit and landed close to the Octagon Hide. I took my cue, made my way to the
hide and fired off around 60 shots of the bird - generally feeding at between
100-120 yards distance (see images above). The Lapwings were not keen on it and
chased it back to the spit after ten minutes.
Lapwings had actually increased heavily in
number - 107 being tallied - whilst a single Common Sandpiper was the only other
wader to be seen.
Just 5 Mute Swans remain; two broods of
Tufted Duck (a 6 and a 7 - see pix), Red Kite overhead, 9 Lesser Black-backed
Gulls (including 5 juveniles), 14 Common Terns and 3 juvenile YELLOW
WAGTAILS