BIRD NEWS:425

On the second Friday of August, I set out on a solo trip to Arundel - despite the weather. Showers of heavy rainfall and gusts of wind accompanied me on my excursion and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get the chance to take my camera from my bag. I stood under trees a path away to take my first shot of the day, depicting the 2 black-necked swans at Arundel WWT.

I thought perhaps I might have better luck in the hides - but in the first 3 I visited, there were no birds to be seen. Then I entered the sand martin hide and was rewarded with audio of multiple specimens with the fluttering past the window of the odd sand martin.

It was still raining as I was waiting on a bird to land on the stick outside - hopefully, when a fellow observer drew my attention to my right - where a bended cane was filled with the birds. I managed to get 4 decent shots of the sand martins before moving onward.

I had not spotted the Bewick swan family in the special cages, so assumed and hoped that they had been returned to their regular enclosure, now that the cygnets were older. They had!

The four cygnets were swimming about with the parents when I passed on my first circle of the site - often breaking off in their quartet to perform a game of 'flap and chase'.