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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jonathan Williams" data-source="post: 3395154" data-attributes="member: 45814">Great Snipe.  A tale of woe for me.  Saw the one at Fazackerly that may or may not have been one and therefore untickable on the views I had, and I wasn't satisfied that I could id it anyway so left it at that.  Couldn't go to Spurn / Flamborough for THAT weekend in September 1993 when at least 2 were knocking around and seen by the masses, dipped one at Spurn in September 1996 (I think), but did see a Lancie that day so.....  Saw the one at Flamborough in 2008 that was a Common Snipe, walked away grumbling about not being happy with it but didn't say anything.  Went for the Holy Island one and when everyone was lined up for the flush one idiot stayed on his own slightly above and behind the flushers thinking I'd get on it as it went up.  Everyone at the side got on it, one idiot missed it completely.  Luckily I finally saw that one later in the day, but not as well as I would have seen it had I stood in the right place earlier.  I'd left the country when there was the absolute cracker at Spurn showing down to inches.  To cap it all, just after I'd arrived in my new country, in early October 2009 I went out birding at my now local patch of Etang de Lachaussée.  I was walking down a track which has a grass field to the right and the scrubby bit that turns into the reedbed that borders the lake, dry habitat basically to the left.  All of a sudden a Snipe sp. bursts up from about a yard in front of me, causing me to almost fall over backwards with shock.  I didn't even manage to lift my bins I was so surprised.  It was silent and big and went straight away and disappeared, I'm quite sure it wasn't just a Common Snipe, I'm quite sure it wasn't a Woodcock.  In the seven years since, I've never seen a Snipe there, and have never, ever seen a Woodcock there.  I would say that it was a probably a Great Snipe, again, just tantalisingly out of reach.It took me 6 attempts to see Franklin's Gull in the UK and 6 attempts to get Pine Bunting too.</blockquote>

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