Rye Meads and Aston End

On Saturday I spent a few hours in the morning at Rye Meads. It was a toss up between here and Amwell, and while I haven't been to the latter for a couple of months, most of the recent passage waders etc have been seen at Rye so that made my mind up.
The weather was pretty dull and breezy at times but nothing much really happened and there were few migrant birds noted.
The Draper scrape held to only passage wader-a Common Sandpiper that had been present for a few days. There were supposed to be a few Green Sandpipers around as well, but they weren't present while I was there. One juvenile Lesser Black Backed Gull was being fed by one of it's parents-at least when the Heron, little Egret  and crows allowed it. Other than that it was pretty much lots of Teal, Gadwall and Mallards gradually moulting out of eclipse.

On to the lagoons without hearing or seeing much at all. Unlike last weekend, there seemed to be very few warblers around, and there weren't any finches or thrushes either. A quick look at the tern rafts on the southern lagoon didn't produce much variety as the water seemed to be covered in Mute Swans, there must have been 30 or more (with a lot more on the other stretches of water).
The water levels are a lot lower on the Gadwall Hide lagoon than on my previous visit, with the islands starting to appear. Lots of ducks, a few gulls and the occasional flyover Snipe were present-along with two eclipsed Garganey. Initially asleep they soon woke up, preened a bit (proving via the pale wing that one at least was a drake bird) before swimming purposefully over to the back of one of the islands.

I had a quick look for the recently found Wasp Spider but was misled by the trampled vegetation and ended up searching the wrong spot, so I carried on to the Warbler hide overlooking the Meads. A very early returning Bittern had been seen briefly a couple of times over previous days. The departing photographer had not seen it all morning and though I spent a bit of time there didn't see much at all apart from the usual Wood Pigeons, a distant Buzzard and a few Swallows heading south. Bumped into Maureen on the way back who told me where the Spider was. Very cunningly it was right by the sign that had been put up (and hidden from me when I passed earlier).
I have seen a few Wasp Spiders a few times on the East Anglian coast and while they have slowly moved inland and have been in Hertfordshire for a year or two, they are new for the reserve. This one was a hell of a lot bigger than I remember.

I returned to the Gadwall hide, finding Colin Wills who I haven't seen for over a year, so we had a bit of catching up to do, and then Maureen popped in for a bit. The Garganey had not been seen since I last saw them so presumably they were hauled up on the back of one of the islands.
With time pressing I eventually left, picking up a few Small Whites, a Speckled Wood and a couple of Blue Tailed and Common Blue damsels.

Sunday morning was again overcast, dull and rather breezy. I decided to have a long walk around Aston End, and though I hauled the camera gear around, it stayed in the bag as there was a distinct lack of action, and the landscape wasn't all that inspiring either.
The nearly five mile walk produced two calling Chiffchaff and a Blackcap. The usual migrant trap hedge along the Walkern road was scanned for some time but only produced a single Chaffinch and a juvenile Whitethroat.
The fields have been harvested, and the one by the phone mast was being harrowed while I was there and this had attracted around 25 Lesser Black Backed and 40 Black Headed Gulls, while there was a flock of 15 or so Swallows picking up the disturbed insects.