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Sunday 10 October 2010

Why Not....

I have had a very tiring few days!

On Friday night at half ten I drove from Seaton to Plymouth, and was up for 8am the following morning. I stayed in Plymouth until half 11 on Saturday night, then drove back to Seaton and got in to bed at 1am. At 6am this morning I was awake for work at 7. Finished work at half 4 this afternoon and came home for a relaxing night... or so I was hoping for......

I really did feel like total crap, and was ready for a very VERY early night - I have work again at 6:30am! But it was such a beautiful evening I just HAD to go out! Why not....

At 18:12 I wandered down to Black Hole Marsh to see if the Curlew Sandpiper and three Little Stints were there from earlier. The first bird I saw was a Sandpiper which had walked around the corner into view....

Hmmmm....something didn't like right!!! There wasn't a Green Sand in sight - and this bird just wouldn't flash its arse or call! Not to help matters it was getting dark - rapidly!

At about twenty past I'd seen enough to put the news out locally of a 'probable Solitary Sand'.

At about half past, as the first local arrived (Ian Mc) two Green Sands flew in and joined it! SH*T THE BED - it IS a Solitary Sand!!!! It just looked so obvious now!

Once all the avaliable locals had arrived (five of us in total), I felt we NEEDED to see its rump for the BBRC, just in case it did/does do a bunk over night - so i 'encouraged' it to fly, which was bloody hard work! It flew about ten feet and showed what we thought it would :-)

We continued watching the bird until it was literally pitch black, it was feeding happily roughly in the same spot as where I first found it.

All directions are on the Devon Bird News Blog, as are a couple of crappy photos and a rubbish video clip. I'll post the pics here too though, plus one more...

EPIC!!!!

This is the moment us patch birders wake up for....or in my case today - don't go to sleep for! Result!!! I just hope the currently off patch - patch birders get back before it goes.... PLEASE STAY BIRD!!!

3 comments:

  1. Great find Steve! What a cracker! Gav must have choked on his tea and scones when news of that filtered through to Scilly!

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  2. Hi Col, many thanks!

    I just hope it stays one more week for his return!

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  3. Brilliant find, Steve. I drove 460miles round trip from Cheshire y/day - wot a bird, worth every mile!! Thanks :) Paul 'Doc' Brewster

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