3 RUFF on Black Hole Marsh + LRP

Well that was a nice surprise! I headed to BHM this morning in case anything new had dropped in but it all looked rather standard. However, after the first half hour or so I spotted 3 birds flying high over BHM; they eventually dropped down onto the scrapes. A quick look through the bins - RUFF! I sent a quick message out before concentrating on taking pics. Spring Ruff on patch are pretty hard to come by - in fact I think these were the first I've seen here that weren't in Autumn. They were also at different stages of moulting into summer plumage so they were rather interesting to observe. All 3 remained distant so the pics are a bit shoddy, but definitely interesting enough to post here:

As is often the case with Spring visitors, these did not hang around long. I observed them for about 5 minutes before they flew up high and headed North. Thankfully Ian Mc and Clive both managed to connect with them as they were flying off!

A small wader flew over BHM just after the Ruff left, but didn't give good enough views to be sure of ID. Fortunately a dodgy pic was convincing enough to confirm that it was a Little Ringed Plover. Phil Abbott later relocated it on Bridge Marsh (unless his was a second bird). Two good birds in one day - now we need something that's genuinely rare please... I went to see the LRP at Bridge Marsh as my flight views earlier were pretty lousy and managed to catch up with a Greylag Goose too, probably one of the two Steve Waite found recently.

A quick visit to Seaton Marshes after the excitement at BHM yielded good views of the GW Teal showing in front of the hide, and also good views of the Glossy Ibis behind The Borrow Pit. By chance I also picked up my first Sand Martin of 2016 here and it lingered for a while, feeding well.

Pretty good day!