The Lincolnshire Bird Club

A pleasant evening seawatch from 1800 - 2030, with practically all movement to the north, hence 92 Sandwich Terns, one Arctic Tern, 115 Common Terns, 6 Gannets, 6 Arctic Skuas and 220 Common Scoters. Birds onshore included 270 Sanderlings, 82 Dunlin, 32 Curlews, 11 Whimbrels and 2 Mediterranean Gulls. 5 Willow Warblers and the first Wheatear of the autumn were on the dunes, while on the flashes were 7 Little Egrets, 5 Green Sandpipers, 2 Common Sandpipers, one Wood Sandpiper, one Greenshank and 2 Redshanks.

Steve - where do you mean by the flashes - are they part of the new workings north of the Stonebridge car-park or are they an area I haven't discovered yet?

Chris - the flashes are situated at the south end of Donna Nook where I undertake most of my observations. They are the old borrow pits which run for about two miles on the seaward side of the seabank from TF 438982 in the north to TF 450950 just beyond Howden's Pullover in the south. I regularly cover the northern mile or so, and used to record some decent birds here, but in recent years there has been a gradual invasion and overgrowth of sea club rush and sea aster which has rendered most of the sides unsuitable for waders. The present sea defence work has built up the bank along the northern half of the flashes which has resulted in a mile of new flashes being created on the landward side of the bank. This new area is accounting for my recent records of passage waders, but as on the realignment project at Stonebridge, access is still restricted by fencing, while ongoing operations by workers and heavy machinery can cause considerable disturbance during the daytime. The new flashes look promising and I look forward to them producing some worthwhile records, but I think that waders will be quite vulnerable to any human disturbance that may occur along the seabank.

Thanks Steve for that information. Andrew Vaughan and myself visited the area today and as usual walked north from Stonebridge car-park which is in the process of becoming a roundabout with the new car-park just a couple of hundred yards to the north of the old one. As you say the new scrapes look as though there will be some potential in the future but Pyes Hall seems virtually beyond redemption being overgrown and access to the bushes by the sluice being blocked off.
We saw very little
Kestrel 6
Whitethroat 6
Buzzard 1
Swallow c30
Yellow Wagtail 3
Not even a wader in the mud at the Sluice