Patch Gold

It's staying steady enough on patch... to my surprise and delight... with some tricky enough species falling into my lap of late. While the owl tree hasn't yielded any barn owls yet this year (and no sign of pellets either) I did flush a brace of woodcock from underneath it last week. Result!

Then yesterday I read online that an early sand martin had been spotted not far from me... so I dashed out for a quick scan of the skies from the front door. No sand martins, but there were 43 (count 'em) golden plover circling overhead before landing in the field across the road.

 A subset of the 43 golden plover in the field across the road.

And a severe crop of a small grouping... clearly golden plover -- just in case Seppy casts doubt on my plover ID prowess (wouldn't put it past him)

To call them patch gold is an understatement -- it's only the second time I've ever seen goldies in the vicinity, and the first time on the patch proper.

Both of those little beauties take me to 59 for the year, or 71.52%... that'll do nicely!