terns and waders at Barton

a great day for passage off Barton today -- highlight 231 Arctic and 18 Black Terns moving east with a brilliant selection of waders following suite; 4 Common Sands, 7 Ringed Plover, 180 Dunlin, Greenshank, 10 Turnstone, 5 Whimbrel, 14 Grey Plover, 12 Sanderling, 3 Bar-tailed Godwit, 2 Little Gulls and my first local Yellow Wagtails --

a pair of Water Rails

after some rain this pair were preening for a long period and even indulged in some allopreening -- as they were not far away and one stood about 6 inches closer than the other I had to resort to f14 to try and get enough depth of field to get them both in focus -- almost worked but shutter speed was drastically reduced -

Chiffchaff variation

Chiffchaff Waters Edge -- while in Orkney this bird was producing some odd song phrases that sounded a bit Iberian like but it was mainly Chiffy if a bit variable in pitch and tone -- recorded it today with an example below and took a few images -- I also played back Iberian Chiffchaff song to it and was amazed by the immediate reaction -- it stopped singing and flew to within 2m of me calling and flicking it wings and tail on no less than three separated occasions --Never managed to get anything of it low down unfortunately

thats plain clumsy

not often you see adult females miss the pass

dull and cold harrier action this morning

not sure how fast a male comes down from a sky dance flight but it is certainly not slow and the amazing jinks must pull several G's