A bright morning, the cupola of the Holderness sky pale blue streaked with light clouds. I took bus X7 to Patrington and walked to Patrington Haven, then heading to the recently completed managed realignment around Welwick saltmarsh, which has been named The Outstrays. The place is unrecognisable as the flood bank has been moved inland, and what used to be fields is now establishing saltmarsh with Brent grazing, wideon splashing and Little Egrets looking for small fish and invertebrates in the new creeks and lagoons.
A large flock of Curlew feed on a grassy area recently created. I move onwards by the quarry of Haverfield, now vegetated with hawthorn and other trees. I ponder what was extracted from the quarry when the materials on some molehills remind me: this is a fossil dune which used to be the shore of the Humber before land was reclaimed and Sunk Island was annexed to the mainland. I decide I need to do this walk again in the summer, looks wonderful for bush-crickets and dragonflies and other insects. In fact, a bumblebee is now feeding on some late bramble flowers and a dronefly lands to bank in the sunshine.
A buzzard mews and is chased by crows. As I emerge from the quarry there is a view of the new freshwater ponds. There are many birds including Teal, Shoveler and a Little Egret. A Shelduck lands. Then I spot a Kestrel that looks like has caught a big bird and is mantling it, there are distress calls and much flapping, but as I focus my binoculars I realise there are two Kestrels in a dogged fight, they separate and come together again. Their calls attract the attention of crows and of a Sparrowhawk. I watch them as they pursue each other and come to the ground again, one of them hovering over the other. One looks like a female, the other a young male.
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