The showers this morning did the trick in grounding some migrants around the Axe. I decided to concentrate on the river valley and it was soon evident there had been an arrival of Blackcaps, Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs. It took a while until I found any quality, and when I did they were in the same hedgerow, the rare-looking hedgerow that runs north from Coronation Corner alongside the Estuary. One was a Grasshopper Warbler that reeled briefly before vanishing, but the other was far more obliging - my first Lesser Whitethroat of the year...
As ever with my videos, if you click on that small cog-like symbol near the bottom right hand corner of the picture, and change the quality setting to 1080pHD, it will look a whole lot better.
For my previous birding outing you will have to turn back to last Friday, which was a very very wet day indeed! The weather did the trick though as this proved our best wader day of this spring so far (which isn't hard as it has been dreadful!). I clocked up 27 Dunlin, one Ringed Plover, 6 Common Sands, one Barwit (a gorgeous summer plumaged bird) and 19 Whimbrel.
Best of all though were the four stunning Yellow Wagtails on Bridge Marsh. Spring Yellow Wags are a bit like Tree Pipits here, they are almost always just fly overs - so it was a real treat to see these.
Lastly, I just realised I never got round to thanking Mrs Bishop for finding the Montagu's Harrier the other day. A pity you got the ID a little wrong Brenda, but if it wasn't for you none of us would have seen it so many thanks from all of us here :-)
Ahh excellent you found out who the visitor was! I had it from Tower without knowledge of the report though so we would still have had it :). It's nice when a visitor finds something good.
ReplyDeleteIs it? Always grips me off!! It's surprising how few of our goodies are found by visiting birders, only a handful of our rarities ever have been found by non patch birders.
DeleteWell self-finds as first sightings are always best but given how well watched this patch is, I think it's quite an achievement when a visitor finds something first. On the other hand that also makes it a very fortunate find so I can see why it could be found gripping :)
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