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Thursley Common (1 Viewer)

Farnboro John

Well-known member
Acting on information received, I scooted down to Thursley Common this morning after a Pectoral Sandpiper. Living in North East Hampshire I don't see too many Pecs locally, so I was keen to see this one: and the location, Pudmore Pond, is a wide shallow pond with extensive muddy edges quite a lot of which are close to the main boardwalk. I was fairly confident of getting very good views and perhaps close photographs.

As I made my way along the boardwalk towards the pond, I met the bloke who had found the Pec coming back, with a big smile on his face and why not! He reassured me it was still there and a minute later I had joined four other birders grilling it at ranges from thirty yards down to about five. It was feeding like crazy and completely ignoring us, though it wasn't too keen on several dogs accompanying their owners on a no doubt regular walk. Once or twice with particularly exuberant canines it took a short flight in the direction of away, calling softly. It returned close to us between these events. Awesome! I took many pictures.

Suddenly someone exclaimed "what's that" as another wader did a low flypast, circled the pond at high speed several times and then climbed away, before again descending and circling, repeated a couple of times before it finally beat its way to altitude and departed Westwards. In the course of this we identified it as a second Pec!

So there you are. Its raining Yanks. Get out there and find them. :t:

John
 
A few pictures of our new local celebrity (still at Thursley this morning apparently).

John

Pectoral Sandpiper X 4
 

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Nothing at a very dull, damp, grey Thursley this morning except a very flighty Common Sandpiper. Apparently the Pec was attacked by a Merlin and contact was made, although it got away. Flew off high. Missed it by maybe half an hour. Gutted.
 
Didn't see that either. I'm not certain that Merlin is on my Surrey list. Only previous record of Pec at Thursley is apparently 1964, before I was born, so that's a genuine once-in-a-lifetime I've missed out on. Of course I'm sure you know the problem as well as I do John, we get so many good birds in Surrey that two of them are bound to come together at some point...
 
Didn't see that either. I'm not certain that Merlin is on my Surrey list. Only previous record of Pec at Thursley is apparently 1964, before I was born, so that's a genuine once-in-a-lifetime I've missed out on. Of course I'm sure you know the problem as well as I do John, we get so many good birds in Surrey that two of them are bound to come together at some point...

Merlins used to winter regularly at Thursley and even I have seen a couple in the last five years, so that's not so difficult. Pec - not so much.... but Pudmore Pond is a terrific wader habitat, it just needs early morning attention as a lot flushes off.

As a three-counties border birder I try not to get too wound up about county specificity: I've had Pec within ten miles of home at Moor Green (Berks), so there's every chance of another reasonably close.

John
 
As a three-counties border birder I try not to get too wound up about county specificity: I've had Pec within ten miles of home at Moor Green (Berks), so there's every chance of another reasonably close.

Quite true of course, and county boundaries are just artificial lines, but I'm more a photographer than birder and it's the confiding nature of this one that has made its disappearance so galling.

Lesser spot seen and photographed at Thursley yesterday too...
 
Quite true of course, and county boundaries are just artificial lines, but I'm more a photographer than birder and it's the confiding nature of this one that has made its disappearance so galling.

Lesser spot seen and photographed at Thursley yesterday too...

I spend a bit of time checking the surfbirds galleries to see who's getting shots of what - when people post promptly it can put you onto a confiding bird early enough for a crack at it. A better guide than "showing well" on RBA, which can mean "through a 60X scope"!

LSW maybe round the parish field somewhere?

John
 
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