Naughty, but nice.

A good Friday’s birding took in the River Dee rivetment from the Steelworks and the Rifle Range from Cop Hole.

Best laid plans to groom the pools at Shotton for warblers were abandoned as the paths running next to the lagoons were cordoned off – apparently to protect the handful of nesting birds.

I wasn’t too miffed, as save a few Reed Warblers and Blackcaps the reedbeds and surrounding scrub was fairly quiet.

No sign of any returning Common Terns either. Sadly it looks like this spectacular colony (the third largest in Britain) is destined to enter the annals of history.

The most likely explanation for the failure of the colony over the previous two years seems to be a new method of dredging employed by British Aeropace. Apparently this has resulted in the river becoming much ‘darker’ and consequently the terns cannot see their prey.

Still, it’s not to late yet for this year, so fingers crossed.

Perhaps subconsciously hoping that I would find one further up the river I opted to run the rule over my old stomping ground of White Sands.

Birds were few, but interesting ones: a single Greenshank, a brace of hysterical Whimbrel, a Wheatear, a very pale Buzzard and an extremely dapper Mistle Thrush - my first Small Copper of the year was also notable.

With a little fuel still left in the tank I bimbled over to Cop Hole. A reeling Gropper and singing Sedge Warbler lured me into an empty rifle range. A handful of Wheatears drew me in a little further and then in the blink of an eye I found myself gazing at a pair of Garganey on the Border Pool at Inner Marsh Farm from the abandoned railway siding....

Until later.