Huntspill & Steart WWT - Sat 1 Nov

I managed to get a day out with a couple of birding mates today and we headed to north Somerset for a complete change of scenery. I'm not sure why but I very rarely venture in to the north of my county, somehow going north seems to take ages...it's uphill I suppose!
Anyway, an early start had us arriving at Huntspill and parking in the village by 7.30am and we walked down to the sluice, scanning the area around us. Pretty much the first things we saw were a few fly-over Redwing and then a female Merlin drifted past us. Over the next hour or so there was a steady passage of birds heading south, primarily Chaffinches, but also several Redwing, Skylark and Meadow Pipits...I also thought I caught the call of a Woodlark, but couldn't nail it down. At least three Stonechats were also seen.
On the estuary there were large flocks of Avocet, Knot, Dunlin and Black-tailed Godwit alongside smaller numbers of Curlew and Redshank. A small group of Grey Plovers flew through and a single Whimbrel was seen in flight.
We were also treated to some great views of a second Merlin as it flew in and landed on a fence a few metres in front of us, but typically flew off just as I was about to take a photo. A third Merlin, this time a male, was also seen, as were two Peregrines. However, there was no sign of the long-staying juvenile Pallid Harrier this side of the river.
After a couple of hours we were starting to get hungry so it was back to the car for a late breakfast or early lunch before driving round to the opposite side of the estuary to visit the newly created WWT reserve at Steart. It has been several years since I was in this neck of the woods and the new reserve looks cracking...however we failed to see much in the way of birds whilst we were present. We dipped out on the Pallid Harrier and this cost us so much time we missed the opportunity of heading to Dunster and the chance of Snow Bunting and Hoopoe...hindsight is a wonderful thing! A Great White Egret was seen at Steart, as was yet another Merlin and another Peregrine (this time a juvenile bird). So not the best of afternoons but all in all a brilliant day out and it was great to catch up with some old friends for the day.