Driving back from Milford around 1pm, 3 Merlin helicopters flying in a line from Walwyns Castle - Bicton - Castle Martin, flushed everything in the fields around the chicken sheds at Sandy Haven. At least 200 Golden Plover flew across the road, with a similar number of Lapwing & 1,000`s of Starlings. Hard to quantify from behind the wheel at 45mph! With limited visibility, high banks, narrow road & nowhere to park I`ve often wondered what lurks in the sodden fields each side of the road there! 1 Red Kite also. At the Gann later, 1 GN Diver, 2 GC Grebes, 1 Greenshank, 52 Teal, 2 Shelduck, 1 Grey Plover, 12 Ringed Plover. The Gull roost at Dale was more guestimation - several hundred BH Gulls out the bay, so I drove to the Field Centre jetty hoping for a closer look but they were about midway to Dale, so an estimate in the fading light of c6oo with only a few Meds (that I could see) with lots more BH`s flying in from the Angle direction. Blustery conditions didn`t help, but all in all a good day for lots of birds even if I could only hazard a guess for most of them!
