Year Bird 540

[StarainBoy]

The list has stagnated for three weeks since last month’s yellow wagtail but my visit to Tesco paid dividends today. The route there takes me through the bottom end of Oakenshaw Wood, where I caught the briefest, almost chickadee-like, buzz of a marsh tit’s call. The wonder is that it’s taken me three months of being back from Australia to find the bird: we even get them on the feeders here in the winter.

[StarainBoy]

Yay! A text from BirdGuides sent Dave and me scurrying over to Upton Warren for a Red-necked Phalarope. I think it was a female but people in the hide kept referring to it as “he”. No matter, she finally moved my British list up a notch from its stalled position since last October’s shore lark, also at Upton. In fact, my Western Palaearctic score also moved on. I have seen the species eleven times in California and once in Oregon, of which all bar one were in the autumn and hence in non-breeding plumage.

Thanks to my scope mishap, I was restricted to binocular views but the phalarope flitted around and fed close enough to us to make some of those good. We couldn't have crammed another tripod into the hide anyway. The visitor had brought the hordes out from their quiet June.

As a bonus a couple of green sandpipers also showed and nudged my world year list up to 542. Fantastic.