Owl pair and Med Gull

You can understand my surprise when, stepping foot onto the marsh to scan for waders at around midday - with the sun beating down, I heard the distinctive 'tu-eet' of a Tawny Owl - only a few yards away! I froze.

There, just above me and staring back at me were not one but two beautiful Tawny Owls - a large, greyish female and a much smaller, browner male - perched next to each other, no doubt wondering what on earth I was doing - on their patch.

I spent the next twenty minutes or so making the most of this magical moment; times like these come along so very rarely... Opposite: the male (taken the following day).

Back at the river, I found a juvenile Mediterranean Gull amongst the hundreds of Black-headeds but failed to find anything rare in the flock of 697 Golden Plover! (Counting waders is what happens when you get bored of rarity hunting!) And the 4 Greenshank and the 30+ Black-tailed Godwits looked stunning in the late afternoon sunshine...

Despite the lack of rarities, cracking views of common stuff in gorgeous light made my day.

Below: the female Tawny and part of the flock of Golden Plover.