Rediscovering the Joys of Birding
• Friday, April 25, 2008 - Terns and Sandpipers
On Friday I took a supposedly short lunch-time trip to Farmoor reservoir which ended up taking longer than intended. The aim was to look for passage terns and gulls, in particular Sandwich Terns and Little Gulls which had been seen over the last few days.
Firstly a bit of book keeping: after inspecting the excellent photos of John Anderson I have decided that my sighting of 2 great northern divers flying over at Fife Ness is not reliable enough and I am accordingly scratching it from my records. So that reduces my year total by one.
On Friday at lunch time I picked up L from nursery and took him out to Farmoor reservoir to hunt for passage terns and gulls. There had been sandwich terns seen with the arctics over the last few days (though only a few) and also a few little gulls, both of which I need for my year list. As I walked up the slope to the reservoir a tern went over and if I'd had to guess I would have said sandwich though I didn't get a good look at the bill and so wasn't confident in counting it. One of the first things I did notice was the large number of swifts flying overhead, my first of the year. There was not a great deal on the reservoir apart from a few terns some of which were sitting conveniently on some green float-things which were strung out across the smaller of the two reservoirs. This meant that I was able to focus in on their bills and identify them. There was a pair of common terns and an arctic tern. There were also a large number of terns flying around and I reckoned (though it's still not a strong point for me) that they were all arctics - I counted at least 10 birds. Walking along the causeway I encountered a very tame dunlin more or less in full summer plumage. It stayed put even when I was about 3 metres away so I could get excellent views of this lovely bird. Further along the causeway was a flock of 3 white wagtails with a single yellow keeping it company and in the corner were a pair of common sandpipers which weren't as cooperative as the dunlin so I couldn't get that close.
I had a quick look in at both Shrike Meadow and Pinkhill hides but there was nothing much about. There were a lot of sedge warblers down in the hedges and bushes approaching Pinkhill some of which were showing rather well.
I met a few birders who were looking for arctic terns and seemed to be having trouble locating some that they could feel confident in Id'ing. They said that they'd seen an adult little gull in the middle of the reservoir which sparked my interest and at that moment a bird ticking many of the Little Gull boxes flew across the reservoir. The only problem was that on closer inspection it had a white leading edge to its wing which marked it out as a black-headed with rather dark under-wings.
The walk back proved uneventful with just one extra white wagtail to add to the tally.
So no luck with the two target passage birds but three more ticks on the year list which brings up the 150.
148 swift
149 common tern
150 common sandpiper |
Post A Comment! :: Send to a Friend!
|
|
|
|
|
