Had a solo trip down to Hatfield Moor today, arrived late morning and spent the afternoon there.
I had downloaded a bit of a map of the area so I had more knowledge of where I was going today, I decided to walk out by the path between Packard's South and Packard's Heath and return to the car park via Badger Corner Lake and the path between Poor Piece and Packard's Heath.
I was hoping to spot some adders but apart from a couple of rustles that may have been snakes moving through the undergrowth I drew a blank.
However the birds were better, I got my first house martin of the year over the lake by the car park along with sand martin and swallow.
Willow warbler were everywhere, I gave up counting at around 20 singing birds, also scored with blackcap, reed and sedge warbler by Boston Park Lakes. Further towards Packard's South heard a garden warbler.
Found a tree pipit on Packard's Heath close to the footpath across the Heath, a singing lesser whitethroat here was quite a surprise.
Got a good view of a singing garden warbler by Badger Corner Lake, as well as views of singing wrens.
Called into a hide and got pics of little grebe in front of the hide, along with great tit on the feeders. As I was approaching the car park got onto a very close, singing whitethroat but too much sun so the photos were bleached out.
Back at the car park I was just shoving the gear onto the rear seats when something flew over my head into the scrubby field by the hide. I'd had a glimpse of white outer tail feathers so thought it would be pied wagtail again, seen one there when I arrived. You can imagine my surprise when I got the bins onto the birds, not one but 3 yellow wagtails. From plumage I would guess at 2 females and a male. Sadly they didn't hang around for long and were a fair old distance away so the best I got was a poor record shot.
Called in at Huggin Carr, managed to find 4 bng on the water, along with great crested and a single little grebe. The footpath had chiffchaff, yellowhammer and whitethroat. No sign of the corn buntings that I'd seen last time.