11 July 2010

A very strong south west breeze, probably the strongest of the year so far, it made the 20c temp feel a bit cooler, cloudy with sunny intervals, dry.

As you can see above the highlight of the morning was a flock of 7 Cormorants, I managed to fit 5 in the above photo and a single bird, think this is possibly one of if not the largest flocks of Cormorants at Westport, Black-headed Gull numbers continue to increase with 67 this morning including 11 immatures, as usual 4 Great Crested Grebes on the boating lake and another 8 on the main lake, Tufted Ducks remain steady at 51, Mute Swans are up 1 to 35 which includes the single cygnet, at least 6 Lesser Black-backed Gulls went through, and the usual 4 Greylag Geese are still with the Canada Geese flock which also still includes the hybrid CanadaxGreylag, Pochards have dropped slightly down to 2 males.

In the nature reserve a single Treecreeper was near the bottom pool and a single Bullfinch also here, Willow Tit was heard calling and 2+ Reed Warblers on the top pool, 3 Stock Doves on the old gas works and a Chiffchaff was calling here, a Sparrowhawk went over getting mobbed by Pied Wagtails and Goldfinches and a Grey Heron flew across the back, finally as we were leaving I heard a Tern on the boating lake as I walked back I noticed a Common Tern which then flew across the the main lake where it was joined by another, at last good views of a Tern at Westport this year after tail end views of all the others plus records from other people that I kept missing.

Total species seen 39.