Bah!! White-tailed plover (or lapwing if you prefer) is one of those fantasy birds that I always imagined I'd find at Elmley. So when one finally turns up in the region, where does it end up? Rainham RSPB. Wrong side of the Thames. Still, a cracking bird & well done to Howard et al for pulling that out of the bag. It won't feel quite as good if it turns up here after it leaves Rainham, but I'll happily accept 2nd-hand birds to get the Elmley wader list moving on.
On the reserve today, the 2 spoonbills remain, generally hanging around the drying-out pools east of the Flood and really only visible from Southfleet hide looking right. Also on the Flood, spotted redshank, black-tailed godwit, common sandpiper & ruff. Small groups of swallows heading south this afternoon, although I was more concerned with moving cattle, which eventually included a herd of bullocks that decided to join in the fun by leaping across a ditch & getting mixed up with the cows we were moving! We eventually got everything back to where it should have been, but it added an extra hour or two to the exercise. The bullocks seemed none the worse for their ducking either - maybe they were just looking for an excuse to cool off.