Taken up a new hobby of driving past rare birds without stopping to see them! So far my "unintentionally avoided list" includes Red Backed Shrike, Spotted Crake, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Purple Heron, Roseate Tern and Spoonbill. Wouldn't mind if I'd actually seen any of these this year! When I did get to do some birding on Sunday afternoon it was fairly quiet this weekend.. Testwood lakes had a Common Sandpiper, Sand Martin and very little else, but it did have a hide so I could sit down for an hour! A very brief Merlin was the only highlight at Normandy, and Keyhaven was also fairly uneventful. Lots of Waders to scan through but I could only manage Grey Plover and Knot amongst the many Dunlin, Redshanks, Greenshanks and Black Tailed Godwits. As darkness descended, I staked out one of the lagoons which had about 3 Water Rails calling. Also picked up a couple of Snipe, but nothing else came out of the reeds to feed. One or two Reed Warblers were settling down to roost in the reeds beside me.
Also had yet another probable Raven sighting over the street.. am I ever going to nail one! This one was being pursued by a crow, but I was in the car and couldn't pull over in time to confirm it.. so do 3x 99% certain sightings equate to 1 definate sighting!! (Previous sightings were from inside the house.. the birds were flying off at a bad angle for identification. Also, the double glazing magnifies birds making it difficult to get a true picture of the size!) |
