Weekend Waders

Hi all, sorry for the lack of updates recently. Its down to both laziness and the fact that the quality of birds in the North of England at the moment is very high, with so many good birds turning up its hard to find the time to write up my blog! Saturday was spent at Saltholme RSPB in Paddy's Pool Hide looking to get a second look at the new nicknamed Long-billed Ditchwitcher (Dowitcher), as was typical for the bird it stayed mainly hidden throughout the day but did pop itself out eventually and I enjoyed it for a couple of minutes before it then disappeared into the grassland not to be seen again for another short while. My first Little Stint of the year was present on Back Saltholme, the hide was dead apart from the reserve wardens and good but distant views were had of the bird, also present was a 1st summer Little Gull. The later species not being much of a surprise. It was a good afternoon stint out and very much so enjoyable, at least I have managed to see the Long-billed Dowitcher again, however it was not as close as the first time I saw it! Sadly the bird didn't show as well as it did on Monday, as Ian's photos below demonstrate:

(Long-billed Dowitcher - © Ian Forrest)

Sunday afternoon I spent doing some more dirty rotten twitching, however you will have to excuse me this time because I hadn't seen the species for about 2 years and so couldn't resist. I went to go and see the Danby Beacon Dotterel, on arrival some friendly North Yorks birders informed us they had been walking around for 2 hours and hadn't seen it. I stopped by some burnt bracken and scanned around a little, turned around and pointed my bins on the horizon of some bracken and there was the Dotterel. A nice male, I would have preferred a female; however it was a Dotterel so moaning would have been more than a little rude!

(Dotterel - © Andrew Kinghorn)

(Dotterel - © Andrew Kinghorn)

Until next time, Foghorn out!