Early returning Little Ringed Plover?

Let’s start off with yesterday. Permission to trap the Lesser Whitethroat has been gained now, and the plan was to trap it early in the morning. Unfortunately it was a bit windy for it and we ended up watching it for about two hours on the other side of the river through scopes before it flew over to our side where it sang for about 30 seconds before disappearing off. While we were there we did see a Kingfisher (first since January I think) and about ten Sand Martins.

Today I set off to check Passage House and saw that there was a group of people at the Lesser-throat “watch point.” The bird wasn’t showing, so after a while looking for it I left for the estuary. Still singles of Common Sandpiper and Redshank, a pair of Oystercatcher, and the Curlew flock is up to 33 now.

Highlight of the day was a Little Ringed Plover running around of the “spit” at Passage. Seems a little early for them to have returned. I haven’t seen any reports of LRP elsewhere in Devon since the spring passage. I decided to go around to the other side to try to get a photo but when I got there I couldn’t find it!

Sadly most of the long grass on the racecourse has been cut, which I expect may have destroyed the nests of any ground nesting birds nesting at the time. The Skylarks were still singing – don’t know if that’s a good or bad sign? There were lots of hirundines feeding over the racecourse though, with 25+ Sand Martins, 20+ House Matins and 20+ Swallows, and also 15+ Swift.