Quick Amwell visit

After the blasting northerly along the River Stort, I thought a trip to Amwell, it may be a little less windy. Wrong! Blasting northerly meant for a cold stay.
Usual fare on offer with a common snipe in front of the view point, but also another snipe, bobbing. A jack snipe, year lister 136. Photos of both snipe below. Look for the shorter bill and dark crown on the smaller jack snipe.

common snipe

jack snipe

jack snipe

For some reason, perhaps the wind, photos nowhere near as sharp as I had hoped for. Shame as the jack snipe was showing well and yes, that is a dead coot next to it! Over the water I registered my 1st swallow of the year: year lister no: 137, a solitary bird working hard to find any insects upon which to feed. Otherwise, Amwell was as normal: canada and grey lag geese, redshank, gulls, tufted duck, 2 goldeneye, gadwall, shoveler, mallards, grey heron and cormorants etc. A single reed bunting flew by and a cettis warbler exploded into short song. A chiffchaff could be heard the otherside of the river.

grey heron puts up the gulls

song thrush