Thursday 11 April 2013

Dun me fine

My first new patch bird this year!

Finally found a Ring Ouzel yesterday! After a lot of effort I was beaming when that white crescent shone at me while counting Fieldfares. A few local birders arrived shortly afterwards but the bird had gone missing. Bob Warden, Staines Res stalwart, arrived this morning in the hope of seeing it and after the toured the fields together for a couple of hours he decided to head to Barnes instead. Inevitably, about twenty minutes afterwards, the bird appeared in flight having taken off from Bog Field and dropped down in Tart's Field. Ian just about managed to get there in time to see it but it again vanished, just before Bob got back and wasn't seen again for the rest of the day! While scanning for it, just after Bob returned, a wader flashed through my binoculars! As I've said before 'wader' is the most exciting shout at a dry inland patch like CFBW - my brain tried to get into gear in this unheralded moment, sorting itself out quickly enough, going in the space of about a second from 'LRP!' to 'no - has wingbars and long bill: Common Sand?' and finally 'Dunlin!!!'. It circled, came so close to landing on the remains of the Bog Field casual pool then flew low north-east. This is my ninth wader species here, all of which I've seen in the last twelve months: Oystercatcher, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Dotterel, Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Woodcock and Common Snipe.