Work In Progress

Woke up this morning wondering what to do today. After considering Upton Warren, but thinking ‘well there there’s not much about….’ and toying with the idea of a trip to Rutland Water my partner and I dismissed these ideas and set about a mass clearing up/tidying operation at home.

After hours of graft, I settled down shortly after 3.00pm for a peaceful session of internet surfing (or so I thought!). I received a message from Reg Telescope (fellow Surfbirder and blogger) saying he’d ticked Wilson’s Phalarope! Feeling rather jealous and hoping this was in twitchable distance, I checked the Birdguides map – this had been reported at UW – my local patch!!!

Looked further into this on birding sites - it had been found this morning on The Flashes and there was a report that it was still there about 1.30pm, ‘probably gone now’ I thought….but on the other hand….no negative news so maybe it was worth a look? I told Max (my partner) the news and he said ‘lets go’ (the words I was hoping to hear!).

We were soon on our way and I was getting very twitchy in the car, hoping against hope that the bird would still be there and remembering the time when we turned up too late to twitch a Bee Eater at UW. When we arrived two birders in the carpark said the Phalarope was still there. We marched up to the hide and although the hide was quite full we managed to squeeze in and get a good spot. Luckily the birder next to me already had it and it wasn’t long till we had the Wilson’s Phalarope (lifer) in the scope, although the views were quite poor at first. The bird was mostly on the far shore and was showing off and on. Patience paid off and we had some very good views of this quirky delicate looking little bird and it even treated the crowd by visiting one of the nearer islands for a short time.

A steady stream of birders were coming in and by the time we left the hide there must have been over 25 people in there and we could hardly squeeze out through all the tripods. More birders were outside twitching from the path and we refound the Phalarope from here and stopped at bit longer to admire it and chat with the other birders.

This was only the second county record of Wilson’s Phalarope for Worcestershire; the previous sighting was also at UW, back in 1985. More reason’s to be cheerful (as if this was needed)? I also saw a Ruff (patch tick), which meant my UW list hit 90 today  and the two Curlew Sandpipers were also still on The Flashes.