Lost in the post

Phil had decided last weekend for us to go to Gileston and East Aberthaw, it seemed a good choice and I was going too meet him by 6 clock at his house.  I set off  nice and early to find one problem after another and got there by 6.20 and found Phil not dressed and late and this is the second time this year he has been late, he's always on time when he picks me up. When we finely set off it was drizelling and when we got to the coast it was full blown rain. Has were are not fine weather birders we set off in Gileston to check the hedgerows and farm fields. The linnet flock is just starting to pick up again and we got good numbers of Reed  Bunting and a family party of Yellowhammers. I have not seen these here for many years and hope this is the start of them picking back up again. In the fields were loads of Canada Geese and hundreds of Gulls, most seemed to be Herring Gulls also a couple of Black Headed Gulls and if by chance I picked up an adult winter plumaged Med Gull flying over. We then spotted something I have never seen before when we got a gull flying over and it looked like it had a bad feet but on looking closer it had mud on both feet and the more we looked all the gulls flying over were the same, it looked funny with their feet dropping down. They seemed to be mostly Herring Gulls and all seemed to fly towards the sea to wash off the the mud, it must have been heavy for them. Like always it was great to be out and see something different and just as we were gettting to the car park we got two Wheatears and had our first well earned cup of coffee of the morning. I fetched apple doughnuts and apple pies and Phil brought the hardest snack I have ever tasted, he said it was a granola bar but it was more like a bit of a patio slab, I almost broke a tooth eating it and will be thinking twice before taking snacks from him again. Next was Aberthaw and the weather was picking up, the sun was trying to come out and we started too see butterflies. We saw loads of Meadow Browns and was nice to see some Holly Blues but it was surprising we only got one Red Admiral and one Painted Lady. We only got two Dragonflies and they were Migrant Hawker and Common Darter. Bird wise it was fairly good mostly common stuff with loads of Whitethroat and a nice surprise was a Garden Warbler. By the pool there was Little Grebe and Kingfisher and the regular Coot, Moorhen, Mallard, Mute Swan, Grey Heron. On the marsh at the back was another Little Egret, a wader flew in which turned out to be a Redshank and it  was joined by two more waders which were a Knot and a Dunlin and it was nice too see the different sizes    .