Snowstones

I detached myself from my desk late morning and headed to the Marine Lakes to feed the Turnstones in the snow as a break from the paperwork that I was buried under. It started snowing just after first light, laid down a couple of centimetres and then by early afternoon it turned to rain. As I type this at teatime most of the snow has gone.

As I headed into the car park I could see some 'Terry's' lurking around on the snow covered grass and as soon as I put the food down they were over with lots of Black-headed Gulls and the odd Herring Gull and Starling. In total there were about 80 Turnstones coming to the food and I managed to re-sight ten leg-flagged birds which was good.

 Snowstones!

Out of the ten leg-flagged birds all had been seen fairly regularly except one bird which was the first time it has been re-sighted since ringing on 16th December 2012. I assume because of the cold snowy conditions it had come in to the feeding station as it knew that it could find food here.

 A Turnstone scrum with some leg-flagged birds amongst them.

On the way home I spotted three Oystercatchers feeding on the grassed area in front of a block of flats, so I took a few snaps.

 Oyc in the snow