With it now officially being spring I went to Swinemoor Common in high expectation of something interesting having arrived by now; I wasn’t disappointed!

A good amount of water still remains creating a nice habitat for wetalnd birds. A large flock of around 200-300 Golden Plovers were bathing and their numbers were growing by the minute. Around 20-30 Lapwings were dotted around the common, defending territories, occasionally making their wierd, synthesizer-like call. 3 Common Snipe were involved in an on-and-off dispute and 2 Common Teal were feeding in the shallows. However, by far the best bird was a single Spotted Redshank which was very obligingly feeding very close to the path. At first I thought it was just a Common Redshank as there were around 6 feeding further away, but as soon as I looked through my binoculars it was obvious that this bird was a Spotted Redshank – the first time I’ve seen this species at Swinemoor.

Other interesting species were singing Skylarks, 5 Pied Wagtails feeding, 7 Meadow Pipits in song and a small flock of gulls: 5 Common Gulls, 9 Herring Gulls and 14 Black-headed Gulls.