A day of squally showers, rising temperatures and (eventually) sunshine on the Lincolnshire side of the Humber for my Killingholme surveys yesterday. It being mid-May there are far less birds on the river or reserve, but there were some nice waders out on the mud - a Ruff with summer-plumage Dunlins, Avocets, Ringed Plovers, Whimbrel and Curlew - and the bushes were alive with warblers.
Amazingly the Whimbrels were the first I've seen this spring (after regular nocmig records over the past week or more), and the storm fronts concentrated hirundines and (especially) Swifts - double figures heading upriver, and 62 feeding at Winter's Pond - where there was also this smart Marsh Harrier. On the way home I nipped in to the Dams, where a hailstorm had brought down a Spoonbill - a nice bonus at the end of the day.
