And waiting

I was fully expecting Cuckoo to be calling when I got out of my car, but no sign.

On the way to LFGP, a pair of Mandarin flew by me North along the Loddon, so it was nice to know they were still about. I arrived about 06:30 and as with yesterday it looked very quiet, but then a lone Common Tern joined the noise of the Black-headed Gulls.

This first for the year fits the new pattern of early arrival dates for this species, for many years it was typically 19th to 21st as can be seen in the 'arrivals' spreadsheet on the FOLL website members page. 

There have always been odd years with very early birds, such as April 10th 1985, then 3rd 1988, then in 1994 a super early passage bird on the 27th March. The next early arrival was an 11th April 1999, was then followed by another exceptionally early bird 26th March in 2003 and then 10th April 2004.

Taking a 10 year snapshot, there are 3 years that are later, but the continuing trend is an earlier arrival of no later than the 12th instead of the end of the 2nd and into the 3rd week April as before;

2006 12th April

2007 15th April

2008 18th April

2009 11th April

2010 22nd April

2011 10th April

2012 10th April

2013 11th April

2014 8th April

2015 12th April

2016 12th April

10 Teal now, 6 Shoveler over North, and the Shelduck were still present first thing and a nest box will be delivered later this morning, so I am super hopeful they take a look and like what they see. As I left Ron's hide a Nuthatch was singing across the river.

1-2 Willow Warbler still about, the Oycs were on Sandford, 2 Siskin went over SE,

So my post script, which still doesn't quite qualify as the 'tadah' moment, Alan heard Cuckoo around 10:00, Sedge Warbler at Tern scrape too, Reed Warbler was reported from WSL, so I thought I'd better get out to check what was coming thru.

25-30 Swallows over the landfill North, 3-4 Willow Warbler in the car park field, the Little Owl in the Oak, 2-3 small flocks of finch sp, 10+ Buzzard up, 2 Kestrel. When I finally walked round to BSL I came across and elderly couple looking at a pair of rather confiding Mandarin which swam past the jetty, sat on the beach for a few moments, then off into the edge of the lake beyond the beach. By their confiding behaviour alone I can say this is not the Loddon pair

I was about to leave, when Bob called me back and told me he'd had the Common Tern and here it was on the yellow buoy.