It started well with the first of the day's two Yellow Wagtails flying over the car almost as soon as Phil and I parked up. Not too long afterwards, a Grey Wagtail, a far scarcer bird at CFBW, flew fairly high south east. Phil and I decided to walk around the fields south of Canons Farmhouse while Steve and Ian headed in the direction of Banstead Woods - we were walking around Heathside Field when a loud and unfamiliar call belted down at us from above. I looked up and saw a large-ish wader!!! My first thought, upon seeing the general size and shape, was Whimbrel but the bill was slightly upturned if anything... plain wings and a white 'v' up the back - a freakin' Bar-tailed Godwit!!! I scrambled for the camera and was lucky enough to get a small number of record shots as it bulleted away. I couldn't recall ever hearing a Barwit call before, so checked my apps to see if the call we heard was a typical Barwit noise and it was an exact match to the recording of the call on the BirdGuides app. Barwit was amongst the birds I have had at the back of my mind at the patch lately... I was looking for them in April and May but long since forgotten about them and assumed that if we were lucky enough to get a godwit at this time of year it would be Black-tailed. There have been no or very reports/movements of Bar-taileds locally in the last few weeks - completely out of the blue! It always seems you come across stuff once you've forgotten about looking for it and are very least anticipating it.
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| Bar-tailed Godwit |
The day didn't end there and over the remaining hours of the stake out we enjoyed two Common Redstarts, two Tree Pipits, a Whinchat, seven Canada Geese, a flock of about a dozen Sand Martins and a few other bits. Ian and Steve saw the Red-legged Partridge and Roy snatched a Cormorant. As a group we finished on a total of 59 species (I logged 53), a new record by a margin of two, but, frustratingly, just one off the magic target of 60.
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| female Common Redstart |
