Looking out from the Tern hide this morning I spied the first flying black-headed gull youngster of the season, a bit clumsy, but flying for all that. This followed on from the first tufted duck brood of the year yesterday. It may seem late for the first brood of ducklings, but they rarely appear before mid-summer at Blashford. I am also pleased to say that there are still little ringed plover chicks, lapwing chicks and oystercatcher chicks scattered around the shores of the lake. There are single lapwing and oystercatcher chicks that should be flying themselves within a matter of days.
Meanwhile, down at the Ivy South hide I got a count of the common tern chicks as well, at least thirty-seven, not bad at all and I am pretty sure there were a few more hiding.
There was a plan to go out and ring some more of the gull chicks this afternoon, for various reasons it had been on and off, but eventually it was all systems go and we raced back to the Centre to get the boat on the trailer. Then, suddenly, it was off again, one of the trailer tyres was flat, by the time it could be fixed we would have run out of time.
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