Bill ans William were there when I arrived at 0930, and later Phil, Simon and Ade turned up. There was a lot of talk about moths, insects and so on as Amwell seemed to be pretty quiet. The Wagtails (Grey and Pied) are flying around now and again, and the regular Kingfisher put in an appearance. Very few waders-for much of the morning there was a single Lapwing present until a couple more arrived. We assumed Snipe are present, but none showed. As last week, a Water Rail was seen in the reeds left of the hide, but a bit more interesting was the dog Fox dozing and causing a bit of a disturbance among the wildfowl.
Cropped phone image-its blown the Swan highlights but reasonable quality considering the distance. I have an app to set the camera up manually as it seems to default to very low iso and slow shutter speeds.
Mid morning small birds started to move as the wind picked up. Two Swallows appeared, heading south-so much for what I said last week. A lot of birds were too far away over the woods, but Siskins, Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits were seen, and at 1120 two Redpolls flew east over our heads calling. Ten minutes later, another 19 appeared, flew around the reeds in front of us and dropped down onto the Loosestrife seed heads. I tried to get the phone onto the scope, having had superb views but something put them up and they continued off down the valley.
The wind seemed to encourage the raptors, with two Sparrowhawks, 4-6 Red Kites and several Buzzards seen in the last hour.
Shortly after I left, a Stonechat put in an appearance-Simon gets them on Kings Mead but they don't seem to be as regular at Amwell as they used to be.
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