Moore today...

Back to the patch this afternoon... part of a 5 day run before work on Monday. Surprise bird of yesterday was a female Garganey on Pumphouse Pool  (my first autumn Garaganey on the patch) so I was curious to see if she'd hung around. Arrived at Pumphouse about 3:30. Where yesterday there had been a single Green Sandpiper on the small pool-within-the-pool, today there were FOUR! That's the highest patch count so far this year. They seem to like to drop in to Pumphouse around this time. Last year I saw my first returning birds (3) on Aug 13th and they peaked at five on Aug 16th so it'll be interesting to see how long they hang around and if the numbers increase over the next few days. Other changes from yesterday... no obvious sign of the Garganey. There seemed to be fewer Teal about and they'd moved to the SE corner so my guess was that if she was still around she was probably tucked away on the south bank of the island with the remaining Teal. Trouble was, it's not easy to view that bit at the moment. Magpie numbers were up... 14 today... and there were a couple more Shoveler about compared to yesterday. Well, after a bit of a yomp around to try to find the Garganey, she eventually turned up with some Teal after a couple of hours and began pottering around in the small bay by the spit as yesterday - cracking little bird.