13 March 2011

A very very wet morning, it rained non stop for the whole visit, most heavy with the odd light spell, wind was mild and from the northwest and temp was 5c, visit from 06.40 - 08.15.

It was just raining to heavily to write down what I saw and how many so most of this is off memory, there were no Goosanders on the boating lake first thing, just the pair of Great Crested Grebes and a pair of Tufted Duck, on the main lake, another 30 Tufted Duck, 3 Pochard, 2 Shoveler, 1 Goldeneye, 2 Mute Swans and 3 Great Crested Grebe, I met up with Nick and braving the rain we headed around the nature reserve, very little on here with a Willow Tit and a couple of Bullfinches being the highlights, we saw nothing of note on the gas works and a single Redwing was the best on the sewage works, back on the main lake and a single male Goosander had flown in so we walked back down to the boating lake to find another 3 female Goosanders on here, I left Nick and headed for home soaking wet and Nick started to make his long walk back to his car at the top entrance, his extra time at Westport paid off when he picked up a Redshank flying around calling for a few minutes before it headed off north, another Westport tick I've missed and the first Redshank at Westport for well over a year, with non recorded at all last year.