Still ideal water levels on Edderthorpe Flash, Houghton remains pretty full of water with no/little muddy edge.
Wildfowl are congregating quickly as each day passes with a good spectacle now each early morning. Canada Geese are up to 256 and Greylag Geese 266 as August begins. Mallard are also in good numbers - 556 on 5th August and should increase more as the cereal fields are beginning to be harvested. Up to 2 Garganey (eclipse drake and a juvenile) have been present since 25th July and are usually on the near edge (to the old railway), but Teal are struggling to reach double figures yet. Shoveler are increasing each day with up to 60 present on 5th August, and Gadwall peaked at 105.
The most surprising occurrence was of 17 Avocet on 2nd August which included a colour-ringed bird (no details yet). This is the largest count ever from Edderthorpe, as expected they were gone the next day but the following day (4th) a group of 9 (no colour-ringed birds) were present. A single adult Black-tailed Godwit was present throughout. Good numbers of Common Sandpipers are passing through with peaks of 7 on a couple of days and up to 3 Green Sandpipers are usually on Houghton. Little Ringed Plovers have mostly departed with just 1 or 2 remaining and Ringed Plovers are now less than daily with just a few passage birds being seen. A Sanderling was grounded in heavy rain on 28th July with another on 5th August. The first juvenile Dunlin of autumn appeared on 1st August. Lapwing still remain jittery after the recent Peregrine attention but up to 377 have been present the last few days
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