I can't remember a year when I have not seen Little Ringed Plover in March, that record was under threat so I had to give it a go this morning. A missed phone call from Gary to tell me that I had missed two Mandarin on the Thames off the basin didn't auger well and when I met up with him he'd also scored a singing Blackcap; needless to say the Mandarins were long gone and the Blackcap had shut up in the freezing weather, a nasty north-easterly was doing a good impression of mid January. I had a few things to do so I decided to try again later (with another layer of clothing) and as soon as I arrived at the basin I saw an Little Ringed Plover on the island, record maintained. I walked to the vantage point on the road and saw that there were now two birds there, yellow eyerings glowing in the late afternoon sunshine. The rest of the days haul included 51 Tufted Duck, but the red-saddled Portuguese female seen by John a couple of times in the week was not among them, 36 Common Teal, a big departure from last week, three Common Sandpipers, the electric flash of a Kingfisher at Bow Creek and both Grey and Pied Wagtails, the latter singing.
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