I swapped a Sunday morning run for an earlier trip to the country park – the warm sunshine and the remains of a bad cold were the only excuses I needed.
However, it was very quiet; even though I got there about 4 hours after the alleged sunrise (not something I am interested in seeing at this time of year) the birds seemed quite sleepy and subdued. The usual flock of mixed larger gulls were absent, a few turned up about 30 minutes after I got there, and the terns had much of the water to themselves.
There was the usual jostling on some of the rafts (I think one had been abandoned as it was full of coots and not terns) when a tern arrived, some fish changed beaks and some of the terns seemed to be settled in and hunkered down quite low – sitting on eggs? I hope so. I did see one unsuccessful attempt to bring in a fish – after much noise and flapping and trying to hand over the fish to a member of the opposite sex he gave up and ate the fish himself!
As well as the terns, the grebe chick and cygnets were still in evidence and I noted that there were now about 8 greylag geese on the water – I wonder if these will become permanent?