Not that I'm counting...

. ..but our warden Andy Schofield has seen a singing Tree Pipit for the last two days and had a Marsh Harrier over today. If only we could have nailed the Arctic Terns and Common Sands today, it would have been a reasonable day.

Common Sandpiper

John Marchant went some way towards easing the pain of The Lodgers' Dot-wits by finding a Common Sandpiper this lunchtime (viewed at 52 metres range). No doubt this one will be gripped back - using the well-known Spotted Sand-eliminating 'Its the brown dot 3 grey blobs left of the white speck' technique - but at this stage of the season I'd rather have the points (as I'm sure a famous football manager recently said): 122.

Bar-wits

Dang the Bedfordshire grapevine works well...!

Text from non-staff birder to staff county recorder (on a day off though), to me in the office. Nipped over the fence to view Derek's and saw the three summer plumage Bar-tailed Godwits. The flew off at 9.45 and towards where I was viewing from but I lost them behind tree but a nice one to get.

Richard

Barn Owl

Well, we really thought that we'd struggle with this one if we didn't pick it up whilst the males were out day-hunting and provisioning females, so you can imaging my delight when this appeared in my inbox from RSPB photographer Andy Hay this morning:

The Lodge, 21^st April.

A Barn Owl crossed over the B1040 from the reserve at dusk (flight line from between the gate house & the fuel dump across to the former hemp field).

Lesser Whitethroat

Ian Henderson came up trumps with a singing Lesser Whitethroat on Sunday morning, 121. That's the last of the 'predicted' warblers (although Lesser Whitethroat is never easy as they don't seem to 'stick' at the Nunnery Lakes). Frustratingly it had moved on / shut up by the time I was on the reserve in the afternoon and there was no sign of it on Monday. Compensation came in the form of a Red Kite (at last - my first from the Lakes rather than the Nunnery itself this year), as well as a decidedly plastic Pink-footed Goose with the Greylags.

Swift...

...though not in terms of posting: 6 staff members were on the reserve on Bank Holiday Friday (!), three of whom saw a single Swift heading north, number 120. On a personal note, a male Yellow Wagtail was very welcome, having missed three previous individuals despite being on the reserve when they flew over.

More moth magic

Some fine moths yesterday morning, including the first hawkmoth of the year, a pristine Lime Hawkmoth (my first ever, as I started mothing too late in the year to see this species in 2010; also made it on to Martin Hughes-Games' TEAL Cup list!):

...a Great (well, big - but truly great?) Prominent...

...and a smart Lesser Swallow Prominent