Yesterday.
A stroll around Two Tree Island with My Pal Mel. We stopped in the bus shelter which doubles up as a bird hide at the west end of the island and spent quite a few minutes watching the lagoon and it avians.
Quite a few black tailed godwits and redshanks, living beak-by-fowl;
the usual smattering of gulls;
the amusing site of an avocet trying to chase away a shelduck. In my experience, shelduck usually come in pairs, or at least, even-numbered groups, but this was a lone shelduck. The avocet adopted its aggressive position and homed in on the shelduck as long as its back was turned, but as soon as the shelduck turned to face the avocet, it backed off. A while later, on a small island, I noticed something moving. It could have been a bit of paper waving around in the breeze, but its movements became regular and I realised that it was a small-duck sized creature preening itself. Mel had his binoculars with him and he lent them to me, and I realised that there were two such creatures and they were juvenile avocets. Not long afterwards we spotted a third, that had been wading around some distance away. So there has been at least one successful pair of breeding avocets at Two Tree Island this year. A few years back, there were lots, but then large numbers of black-headed gulls moved in to breed, and the avocet numbers dwindled to next to nothing.
A warbler on some hogweed, but I couldn't decide whether it was a willow warbler or a chiffchaff. it made no sounds that gave itself away.
