One of my most painful misses at the patch last year was Roy's Green Sandpiper - he had it in Bog Field on the deck but by the time I rushed there from college it had flown off. Today I'd already found a gorgeous and unexpected male
Cuckoo and three
House Martins and seen a
Willow Warbler that P-Go had found (all patch year-ticks, the first a valuable one) when Graham Cole, who I'd been walking with, checked the Bog Field rainwater pool once more and said 'Well, there's something interesting on the right hand side' - I didn't know how high to raise my expectations but scoped where he was pointing and blow me there was a
Green Sandpiper! The second for the patch and totally unexpected - it was super to see a proper wetland wader actually wading on the patch and quite out of context. Particularly amazing so soon after the Dunlin nearly pitched down the other day. Ian and P-Go managed to twitch it before a Magpie saw it off, no more than twenty minutes after it was first seen! I managed two more year-ticks after this,
Blackcap and more importantly
Sand Martin which is a regular but not common passage migrant at CFBW. A brilliant end to my Easter break!
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| Green Sandpiper (!) |
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| Cuckoo |
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| Willow Warbler |
