Spot the birdy

At first sight this may look like an over-busy wallpaper design. A second look will show it to be an extraordinarily large number of black-tailed godwits in flight. They have long bills and trailing legs, and just discernible on this and the extra is the russet breeding plumage that a number of birds have. This is a large wading bird with a wingspan of 70-82 cm, yet in flight in a tight flock they are as agile as a murmuration of starlings (wingspan 31-44 cm), wheeling, rising and plunging.

I had just arrived and sat down in the Allen Hide at Leighton Moss to see a flock of several thousand black-tailed godwits loafing on the islands and in the shallow water. Then panic spread and they all took off, somewhere there must have been a peregrine, but I never saw it.

Yesterday there was a count of 350 birds on the Pool, and overnight the flock had increased hugely. I have never seen this many godwits before (in amongst there are just a few knot). These are not birds that will breed in Britain, where had the new arrivals come from? Ireland perhaps? Or given the easterly winds, have they come from the British east coast? I haven't checked yet, but I believe our wintering birds breed in Iceland, and this may have been a stepping stone en route. There is usually a much smaller summering population of non-breeding birds. 

That was the excitement for the day. The rest of the day has been spent on the allotment.