Sunday 4 October 2015

CITRINE WAGTAIL

Mid-week I spent a nervous couple of days at Spurn anticipating a possible LANCEOLATED WARBLER. A number of locustella warblers were trapped and all turned out to be Grasshopper Warblers. On the first day a bird managed to slip under the net on one run? VERY frustrating!
On another a mouse was caught...not a mouse-like bird! Many thanks to all who took part. Maybe I'll see one...one day? Spurn has to be my best chance...as with many species.

Yesterday afternoon...just before I started work things started to happen down the road. At one point the Pied Wheatear and Citrine Wagtail were side by side on the Humber foreshore! Unfortunately they were on the other side of the breach (the gap created by the tidal surge). No chance of yours truly getting down there, although if it had been a Black-eared I'd have had a good go!! I'd seen the former at Spurn before but the latter would be a Spurn tick. Off to work then.

Full day today after last bus. Not ideal. News started to trickle through. No sign of the PW but the CW had moved north to canal scrape. I had an hour break between runs. Go for it! A quick pit stop at home to grab my gear and down to Kilnsea. It was like a football match which wasn't surprising given it was an October Sunday. I managed to park along the road near the Canal scrape and made my way to the hide...hoping it wouldn't be too packed, as hopefully most would have seen it by now?

It was busy but not manic. I had 5 minutes! I managed to negotiate a spot on the bench and manoeuvred my legs into place. I needed a break now...and I got it as it was showing reasonably close. Always very active...a well marked bird...


REALLY pleased to have connected under the circumstances!

2 comments:

mq said...

You SHOT past me coming the other way, you had me checking news services as I thought you were off somewhere in a hurry!!!

Alan Whitehead said...

Didn't have long!