Started with a top secret trip down south to a secret site to see a life tick, something that the grandkids won't be able to see!
Wednesday saw Me, Oliver Metcalf and Chris Gomersall heading to Flamborough head in late morning hoping to catch up with the Bee-eater but mainly to see if we could find anything good, all was going well until I got a text alerting us of a Calandra Lark that had been seen this morning at Gibraltar Point. A quick look at the map and we we're off, taking Chris out of his beloved Yorkshire! We continued to Gib even after further negative news to see if it was still about. Arrived at Gib about half 1 and we headed towards Greenshank creek to start looking.
It was a bit dissapointing to see only about 6 other birders on site trying to look for this Mega Lark, only 2 previous mainland records, 2008 a fly over at Spurn and 1961 a one day bird at Portland Bill. We spread out and covered as much ground as we could but after several hours of searching with only Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, a couple of flyover Cuckoo's and an Avocet also news that the Warden had seen it the night before as a 'possible' we decided that it had cleared off this morning, oh well worth a try.
We decided to head further south along the Lincs coast at an attempt to see some birds! Frampton Marsh RSPB was our next stop. Pulling into the reserve and scanning over the lagoons you could see straight away how good this reserve was! Last visited it back in Feb '10 where we saw Lap +Snow Bunts, Twite, White Fronts etc but this was even better. Scanning the pools showed 5+ Temminck's Stints (lifer!) male Red-necked Phalarope, drake Garganey, plenty of Blackwits, Redshank, Avocets, Brent Geese and Yellow Wagtails. Oli picked up a different wagtail but lost it to view and thought it could have been a Water.....
We walked round to the 360 hide to see what was showing from here, we counted 7 Temminck's Stint!, 1 Little, a male Channel type wagtail and several flava type females. Best of all however was a bird that I managed to pick out and instantly thought Water Pipit... it then dissapeared behind some vegetation but soon re-appeared and confirmed itself as a near Summer Plumage Water Pipit! Brilliant finally one of my biggest bogeys!
We hung around here for a white enjoying cracking views of the Temminck's Stints and dodgey female flavas. As we we're leaving we noticed news of the White-tailed Eagle at Ruckland again, sat in a field!
Seen as it was on the way home we called in at Ruckland for the 2nd time this year and started to scan for the Eagle. No sign of it though and it had presumably gone to roost already.
Still a brilliant day, saw some quality birds, 2 lifers and the year list moved onto 189.
I've now managed to find my camera charger so you won't have to suffer woeful video grabs much longer, just woeful digiscoped pics now!
After dipping on the Lark...it turned out to be a very productive day for...2 lifers not to be sniffed at!
ReplyDeleteDidnt realise Water pipit was a bogey of yours Tim. Did you not manage to get the Grimley bird a few years back? mind you, birding is funny like that - Short eared owl was a bogey for me until 3 years ago and Ive been birding seriously since the mid-90's!
No I didn't Jason, tried several times but never managed to see it.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has bogeys its what makes birding fun, if you'd seen them all it would be boring!
If you have seen them all it gets boring so then you start ticking the twitchers, keeping lists of people who list. Whats the birding version of Seasonally Affected Disorder SAD.
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