My good birding friend Christian C tends to have Thursdays off so I joined him for a morning's jaunt at Beddington. It seemed I was missing a hirundine spectacular at Canons but, after dropping Christian back home, I figured there was little point in me heading there to pick up the dregs and opted instead to just return to Beddington to sift through the gulls and keep an eye and an ear open for fly-overs.
A few grounded passerines included singles of
Wheatear,
Whinchat,
Reed Warbler and
Lesser Whitethroat, as well as at least four
Stonechats and around 20
Chiffchaffs. A few
Meadow Pipits were milling around, a late
Swift flew through and all three common hirundines were passing through at a very low ebb. One
Yellow Wagtail called overhead and at least three
Grey Wagtails were knocking around. In the south-east corner, we located the juvenile
Wood Sandpiper feeding along with two of the four
Green Sandpipers logged. Aside from around 15
Lapwings, the only other wader record was
Snipe, with a flock of four disturbed.
Grilling the gulls produced two
Caspian Gulls, representives in their first and second calendar years, and an adult
Yellow-legged Gull, I think the same bird as I had on 8th September. That's not to mention a rather striking leucistic juvenile
Herring Gull! I imagine this bird could cause confusion later in life if it wanders around the country... The roll call of ducks included two
Wigeon, 70
Teal, 73
Shoveler and 31
Gadwall, while two
Egyptian Geese made a ruckus. A
Water Rail hurled itself across the North Lake by the hide and onto one of the islands.
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| juvenile Wood Sandpiper |
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| second-winter Caspian Gull |
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| first-winter Caspian Gull |
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| adult Yellow-legged Gull |
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| leucistic juvenile Herring Gull |
