Gadwall #41

Yay - finally a negative test - I'm free again!!! 

After a shift building furniture and tidying up at the Butterfly House this morning I still felt fresh enough to want to go out for some birding. I've really been missing it, but didn't feel up to walking miles, so we went to RSPB Marshside. There have been some good sightings there in the past few days - Spoonbill, Curlew Sandpiper, Garganey, Little Stint and Wood Sandpiper - surely we would be able to find one of them - nope! Not even a possible sighting. 
However, we still had a lovely time in the sunshine and saw 5 new birds for this year which is always good. Not that they were unusual in any way - mostly warblers, but still nice to see and hear. 
In front of Sandgrounders hide were lots of black headed gulls, a few distant avocet and the usual wildfowl. I enjoyed watching two male gadwalls having a tussle right in front of us and it was perhaps the best of a bad lot(there's a couple more in extras) - I'm way out of practice. Hopefully we can get a couple more sessions in before our trip to North Wales on Friday.