Thursday 21 September 2017

Beddington Farmlands, 21st September 2017

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.

juvenile Wood Sandpiper
second-winter Caspian Gull
first-winter Caspian Gull
adult Yellow-legged Gull
leucistic juvenile Herring Gull