This morning was my first visit for two weeks and the bird numbers continue to increase. Waders present were 1 Little Stint, 12 Dunlin, 5 Ruff and 3 Lapwing. Also 4 Green Sand flushed out of the rhyne to the west of the reservoir. Excellent duck numbers, particularly Pintail 74, Teal 788 and Wigeon 678. Coot numbers also building up with 1200 present. c100 Meadow Pipit and 1 Wheatear round the perimeter.

Looking at the WeBS data, the Pintail and Wigeon counts were the second highest in the last 50 years!

A few additions from last week:

1 juv male Scaup, 710 wigeon, 8 Dunlin & 3 Ruff on 18th
(Roger's little stint is a new bird - none present for last week)

1 juv Sandwich tern (joined the gull roost) & 102 Pochard on 16th and 1430 coots (numbers fell back by Friday)

1 rock pipit on 14th

1 juv female Garganey present since at least 6th

1 Brambling heading NW on 11th (during the big redwing movement)

Roger - check the monthly totals for wigeon and pintail in old Somerset bird reports; the Webs counts aren't always the highest counts

Dave

with the large amount of rain in the last few days,the revealed mud flats have now dissapeared bar a rather small area, though expect this to have gone by later today or thursday,a few muddy verges are still there adjacent to the sports field, the large area at the Axbridge side is still very much "dry"

1 Little Stint on the exposed mud near the Sailing Club this morning at 12 p.m. It seemed to have an injured right foot. Also 1 Ruff in the same place.

1 Ruff and 1Dunlin this morning. Mud island now completely gone, but still good numbers of dabbling duck feeding in the shallow water.

1 Little Stint this morning was the only wader. Nothing out of the ordinary following the overnight storm.

1Little Stint again this morning. Dabbling duck numbers continue to decline with the increasing water level, but 80 Mute Swan.

spotted a virtually all black wagtail this am by Axbridge tower, head was bright white and apart from a pale underbelly the bird was black all over.... and a grey wagtail along the cycle path

Nearly all black Wagtail ? has anyone checked this bird for the Blacked-backed Wagtail, Motacilla lugens, with the recent weather bringing some unusual birds into this country almost anything could be possible.

i would say that, after reading your post and checking out some photo's the bird i saw was even more black overall than most of those pictures posted on the net, but the head markings in the photo's are the same as the bird i seen, feel quite chuffed now having seen a possible rarity to this area