It's good to report that both waters are now holding good winter water levels. Houghton Washlands was purposely left to dry up in the autumn to allow important maintenance work to be done and Edderthorpe Flash dried out far too much after a dry autumn. Both are now looking fine.
There are very good numbers of dabbling duck using the two adjacent sites with;- Mallard 300, Teal up to 400, Wigeon around 200, Gadwall 65, Shelduck 4, Shoveler 6 and Pochard 23. Up to 3 Pink-footed Geese are amongst the 150 or so Greylags, 300 Lapwings are joined by 50ish Golden Plover, a Redshank and a very early returning Ringed Plover was on one of the islands on Friday - today there are 3 Ringed Plovers on the nearby ashfield up by the Sash factory - the local breeding birds returning very early this year. Up to 3 Stonechats have survived the winter on the Flash and can usually be seen amongst the juncus from the bench.
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