The Deskbound Birder: Tree Pipit

Showing posts with label Tree Pipit. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 October 2020

Pennington Marsh - 9th October

After dropping my son at school I spent a couple of hours at Pennington Marsh before work, it was a lovely sunny morning and I planned to walk a short loop out to Fishtail Lagoon and back east. When I got to Fishtail Lagoon two Grey Phalarope that had been found yesterday were showing superbly well in the south-east corner of the lagoon and so I spent some time with these fantastic little birds as they fed at close quarters. A Woodlark flew over heading south, a new site bird for me.

The time was pushing on and so I headed quickly out to Keyhaven Lagoon, which was somewhat disappointing as is so often the case, and then headed back east along the seawall seeing a couple of Yellow Wagtail and Bearded Tit.

My eBird checklist can be viewed here.

Grey Phalarope - Fishtail Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Meadow Pipit - Jetty Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Yellow Wagtail - Jetty Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

On reaching home, I checked my phone and to my shock the top message was 'Wilson's Phalarope showing well at west end of Fishtail Lagoon', reported at 11:15 I must have walked right past this bird at around 10:15. Absolutely gutted! I sat at my desk and completed some urgent work, the rest can wait till later and I headed back down to Pennington. After a slightly mad drive and a quick dash along the seawall I was watching this superb and very confiding Wilson's Phalarope as it fed amongst the rush in the west corner of Fishtail - I was made up. A fantastic bird that I have only seen a handful of times before, the last in the UK being the summer plumaged female just across the water at Yarmouth on 21st June 2013.

My eBird checklist and additional photograph's of the Wilson's can be viewed here.

Wilson's Phalarope - Fishtail Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Thursday, 4 June 2015

Fair Isle - 29th May

After a much needed sleep I went through the 05:45 alarm and woke at 06:30, the sun was already shining and the wind was a light south-westerly, not ideal weather for a mega but this was Fair Isle. I started the day with a walk over Buness seeing a distant summer plumaged Great-northern Diver and enjoying the Arctic Tern colony which were just in the process of building their nest scrapes. I had some very good views of Bonxie which seemed particularly confiding. After breakfast I headed south down the island, I headed out to Pund and down the Gilly Burn and spent some time sitting on the cliff and staring into Hjukni Geo where birds often gather amongst the flotsam and jetsam on the beach. There was a single Chiffchaff and a couple of Wheatear. I went onto the north and south Raeva’s but there was little here, news broke of a female Bluethroat at Bulls Park so I cut north-east diagonally across the island seeing three Barnacle Geese on the way. When I arrived there was no sign of the bird so I began hunting for it along the walls running along the north and the south of Bulls Park, eventually there it was feeding along the foot of the wall to the north of Bulls Park. I spent around 1.5 hours with the bird, it mainly fed along the foot of the wall and around puddles at the foot of the wall but on one occasion it headed further out into the field and fed amongst the grassland and within the ploughed field of the Bull Park.

After lunch I headed back to the south of the island mainly walking down the road. I spent much of the afternoon around the south of the island photographing Purple Sandpiper (3), Dunlin (2) and Turnstone (6) in the western area of South Harbour. I also paid a visit to the Oysterplant that occur on the beach at Muckle Uri Geo which were just about in flower. I then wandered back up north seeing very little new on the way, a bird that I flushed at the Chalet flew towards Pund I could not initially identify it, so chased it up and it proved to be a Tree Pipit which showed fairly well feeding in the mire to the east of Pund. A short diversion to look for the Bluethroat at Bull Park produced a blank.