On a sunny but chilly morning I started at Fairclough’s Platform where a kestrel hovered over the parking-bay right up until the moment I had my camera switched on. On the reserve itself was the usual fantastic seasonal display of ducks, geese and waders, with a colour-ringed black-tailed godwit prominent amongst hundreds of its fellows. A scattering of ruff and redshank were present amongst them, and the whole lot kept twitchy by a pair of buzzards hunting worms along the fenceline as well as a heron flying over.

No surprises amongst the wildfowl, with Pintail the latest arrivals in number. Junction Pool afforded little beyond a squint into the glare.

Moving on to the outer marsh, the raptor viewpoint only added Sparrowhawk to the day’s raptor list, but a very distant Spoonbill out on the low tide sands was a nice surprise.

Male and female Stonechats took turns atop the bushes on the edge of the marsh. Heading into Sandgrounder’s, I spent more time chatting than looking out the windows, although I did spot a Migrant Hawker flying past - my only dragon of the day with none perched up in the usual spots any time I looked. There were plenty of grasshoppers, a couple of Eristalis pertinax and a big ichneumonid just like yesterday - probably Pimpla rufipes.

Returning to the raptor viewpoint I had another look for the Spoonbill, but by this time the day had warmed up enough for it to be just one of a number of distant wobbly white blobs in the haze.