Tuesday 8 May 2012

Red Rump Reported

6th May - I spent an hour and a half on Sunday morning checking to see if anything of note was available for the Bucks Bird Race team who were on their way to a record breaking 122 species today.

4 Little Ringed Plovers were on the back of the spit - my largest count this year, and the continuing Common Sandpiper.  Yellow Wagtails were once again on the spit - this species is having a good run of records at the moment: 7 on Friday, 20 yesterday and 11 today, though I didn't manage to see all 11 this morning.  The continuing male Wigeon, small numbers of Teal and Egyptian Geese were all target birds for the racers.

It was a cold morning and hirundines were once again much in evidence, with House Martins coming through in their 100s over the previous few days.  We had all been checking the white rumps for an orange one - there had been several recent records nationally for Red-Rumped Swallow, with the closest being at Farmoor - not too far away.  Anyway, as ever, none were seen and I departed at around 9am.  It was therefore a bit galling to discover that a regular dog walker, who also apparently knows his birds (though no one seems to know his name!) reported to several local birders the following day, that he had been watching a Red-rumped Swallow for 20 minutes at about 10am the day before.  It was flying backwards and forwards in front of him, low over the eastern side of the lake!  I don't know if he will submit this report, but it sounds like it could well be the one that got away!

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