Pages

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Red Faced Thanks To A Redshank!

Here's a few more pics of yesterdays 'Spot Red'...


A nice elegant, long-legged, long-billed bird. Crucially with a dark upper mandible with red only at base of lower mandible.


And this is the photo I posted yesterday. Sooty headed, mostly sooty grey upperparts. Its paler belly I put down to it moulting into 1w plumage.


And this awful photo shows how bright red the legs were. Not the dull orange of a juvenile/first-year Common Redshank.

And SO, I hear you all ask???... Well it was seen to fly last night, and showed off whopping great white trailing edge to the wings and it went "teu-hu-hu".... so it's just a Redshank!

I guess against it on these photos are that the bill looks quite thick and it lacks any downward kink at the tip. But it is the largest, leggiest, lankiest and sootiest Redshank I have ever seen, could it be a bird from an eastern country?

Isn't birding fun, you just never stop learning!!


3 comments:

  1. Ouch! Perhaps you and I should stick to gulls Steve! ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. No way Gavo - we are well over due a decent wader!

    Very true Jonathan, not fun, just interesting!

    ReplyDelete