24th June 2016

This evening I had my fourth trip round Longham Lakes this month, with only one new bird the Peregrine this month.I was hoping to catch up with some terns as there as been a couple of sightings of Common and Sandwich Terns round the lakes, but not this evening though I think it is only going to be a matter of time before I catch up with one of the species hopefully!
Walking up along the causeway there were about 30 Swifts flying this way and that and some darting past at head height after insects. I just love watching these master of the air as they go about hawking across the lake and high in the sky specially when we have good conditions like this evening .
I decided to count the tufted ducks that were about across both lakes and came up with a count of c150 tuftys and 44 coots.
The most interesting thing to happen this evening though was a Cuckoo I heard call behind Samuel's Wood and a fox trying to catch woodpigeons in the shire horse field.
Think it is going to be a hard  few months now, just wish the lakes had a few more shallow/ gravel areas for migrant waders to drop on to as the water level was high this evening so no areas round the island were exposed

Male Mallard in eclipse