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
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