A flock of pintail

I'm feeling much more relaxed today - last night's talk was a success with an audience of about 50 people and Chris has arrived home safely for the weekend. And tonight he and Lizzy are cooking me my second Mother's Day meal - I feel very spoilt :)

This morning was dry and grey, but Pete, Chris and I decided to spend a couple of hours visiting the Nene Washes, to see if there were any interesting birds about. The flood water has receded since our last visit, leaving huge areas of damp grassland. There were certainly plenty of wigeon - we must have seen thousands - as well as teal, shoveler and coot.

Early on I spotted a couple of large birds flying on the far side of the Washes. They landed and we were excited to confirm that they were a pair of common cranes, unfortunately far too distant to capture a decent image, but very exciting nevertheless. Shortly afterwards I photographed this duck flock, thinking it was a flock of wigeon, but having looked at it closely on the screen, I realise most of the birds are pintail, a much rarer and more exciting species. They landed on a sheltered bank and having viewed my photographs of them loafing I estimate there were well over two hundred. Other high points of the visit were watching a distant peregrine harrying a flock of wigeon, and a single marsh harrier briefly worrying some lapwings.

The Cradge Ditch had been recently slubbed out, which gave a fascinating insight into the underlying geology, with distinct areas of sand, gravel, blue clay, silt and peat. The slubbings were littered with many mollusc shells, the most frequent of which were swan mussels which grow up to 20cm in size. In total Pete recorded fifteen different species of mollusc - not bad for a casual walk!