Waders

Every autumn the Meare heath lagoon at Shapwick is drained down by Natural England to provide shallow water feeding habitat for migrating waders and ducks, and we usually get a good selection of species throughout the season. This year has started well;

On the scrape this afternoon were 4 Green Sandpipers, 1 Curlew, 5 Ruff, 4 Dunlin, 2 Curlew Sandpipers, 2 Black-tailed Godwits and 3 Snipe, alongside the resident Great White Egret and Water Rail, and rapidly building numbers of duck, with Teal growing in abundance in every day as they arrive from the far North. Thanks to the South Drain separating the path and the scrape, the birds are always a bit too distant for DSLR photography but phonescoping just about allows record shots:

Dunlin and Black-tailed Godwit

Curlew Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper and Snipe

Ruff

And finally, the biggest news of the week, work resuming on the new Ham Wall car park, hopefully to be ready by the time the 'starling season' starts in November!