This morning I managed to visit four of my ebird patches :king:
There was a group of six terns at the "Duckburg"/"Swallowburg" site. I fortunately heard their unusual cries and turned around to look at them as they flew past me. A mudflat appeared since my last visit on Friday; it bears duck footprints but a couple of dogs kept prancing around and swimming in the river so ducks swam to the center of the river. As weather was ideal I walked the entire length of the riverbank (including the area where I never went before; quite a boring patch without birds; I'll stick to my usual length of path) and swallows were everywhere (some are still entering nests and there are numerous juveniles flying around) and there are also mallards with every possible plumage (even one tiny duckling). House Sparrows are everywhere (but they are not reddish at all like some I have seen on identification thread). I saw the mallard/muscovy hybrid we saw in January (at the same spot); it was pretending to call but nothing was audible (it was as if someone turned the sound off); has a green speculum. Nice little egrets and one black-crowned night heron. Only three coots; the common sandpipers that I saw on Friday were gone but there were white wagtails dancing around each other down the bank.
The rest of the patches had the usual summer minimum in number of species, except for the said middle-spotted woodpecker which hammered very close to some red paint mark on a tree.
There was a group of six terns at the "Duckburg"/"Swallowburg" site. I fortunately heard their unusual cries and turned around to look at them as they flew past me. A mudflat appeared since my last visit on Friday; it bears duck footprints but a couple of dogs kept prancing around and swimming in the river so ducks swam to the center of the river. As weather was ideal I walked the entire length of the riverbank (including the area where I never went before; quite a boring patch without birds; I'll stick to my usual length of path) and swallows were everywhere (some are still entering nests and there are numerous juveniles flying around) and there are also mallards with every possible plumage (even one tiny duckling). House Sparrows are everywhere (but they are not reddish at all like some I have seen on identification thread). I saw the mallard/muscovy hybrid we saw in January (at the same spot); it was pretending to call but nothing was audible (it was as if someone turned the sound off); has a green speculum. Nice little egrets and one black-crowned night heron. Only three coots; the common sandpipers that I saw on Friday were gone but there were white wagtails dancing around each other down the bank.
The rest of the patches had the usual summer minimum in number of species, except for the said middle-spotted woodpecker which hammered very close to some red paint mark on a tree.
