Sunday, January 15, 2017

Third time lucky...


This morning, the weather forecast was quite uninspiring with rain predicted for most of the day, however, as with most things weather related, the day didn't turn out as reported. It started off dark and overcast but ended up quite bright and fair, and we scarcely saw a drop all morning.

I met with John and headed off to East Chevington again for the third time since Christmas, hoping, again, to catch up with the wintering Shorelark flock, present here since November. Today was to be third time lucky as the birds, all 7 of them, were feeding on a tiny ribbon of strand tidemak as soon as we peered onto the beach. A few dog toting dudes did their very best to chase the birds off, but they were keen to get back and we finally got some great views. One bird in particular was a stunner, a full, horny male, with jet black face and breast markings on a primrose yellow background, while one was a drab female. The other 5 were more intermediate in colour and condition , but all were very nice, charismatic birds.

While John took a few photos, a nice flock of 42 Twite dropped in to feed near the larks.

From here we had a brief stop at Amble Harbour where the local Mediterranean Gull was sat on its rock on the little shore, then we headed off up to Boulmer. The tide was miles out here, but there were a lot of birds, distantly to scan through. There were 35 Bar tailed Godwits, 3 Grey Plover and the juv Glaucous Gull down on the waters edge. Off we set, resulting in John getting some decent shots ( check his blog out here).

As it started out dull, I didnt bring my camera but managed a few shaky seconds of video with my phone hand held on to my scope. Not bad?


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