Since arriving back from my trips to Spain and France I've completed several visits to Brandon Marsh but without any positives on the migration front.I was sitting in the hide this morning with other members of the 'Tuesday Bunch' on a thoroughly dank and miserable morning complaining of the lack of migrants recently, when the word complacency was uttered!!
Having considered this over coffee, while perusing the 300+ Greylag that had just arrived, the earlier female Pintail I'd recorded and the good numbers of Shoveler, Wigeon, Teal, Gadwall, Tufted Duck and Snipe, I had to agree that I've become quite complacent on my home turf. Oh yes and I forgot to mention 2 Greenshank which have now been with us for several weeks.
All considered, for a site of Brandon's diversity, literally smack in the centre of the Midlands and miles away from any coastline we don't do too badly, in fact we do extremely well. As winter approaches I was also reminded of our returning Bittern, probably more than one actually, and further reminded of our resident Cettis Warblers, another reserve success. In fact by the time I departed this afternoon, among others I had also recorded 2 Raven over New Hare Covert, a lingering Blackcap, 2 Chiffchaff and the usual trio of Common Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel.
After lunch we were also treated to a Grass Snake, who entertained us for at least 20 minutes in front of the main-hide and simply couldn't make up his mind whether to swim out to the islands or remain on the bank. All in all an excellent days wildlife and with all that in mind I'm going to give myself a good slap when I get home later and remind myself of what a wonderful place Brandon is!!!
