Knot too Misty

16th November - It was a grey, overcast and misty day pretty much all day.  I paid a quick morning visit and again in the early afternoon before school pick-up hoping that the misty conditions might have brought something in.  The highlight of the morning visit was a single Golden Plover that came in calling and landed on the spit for about 20 minutes before flying off SW.  The small huddle of Snipe on the near spit had risen to 11 birds.  Otherwise, I contented myself by looking through the gulls and picking out some colour rings.  Of these, 2 were regular birds, BHG black R34A from Pas-de-Calais, France and LBBG red KB3T ringed at Rainham Marshes.  The 3rd was a new bird, an adult LBBG with dark blue darvic and orange code AMW.  I knew that this combination made it a bird ringed in Gloucester and duly sent the details off.  A speedy response gave me the following details:

It was ringed as an adult bird on 5th Feb 2007 at Stoke Orchard landfill site, Gloucestershire.  It had been noted at Beddington SF, London on 20th Nov 2009, back at Gloucester Landfill on 8th April 2011 and now my record.

My early afternoon visit was in the company of Dave C.  There did not appear to be much change from the morning, however, just before 1pm, a Dunlin flew in from the south calling and landed on the near spit.  Knowing that a Knot had been seen in the morning in Bedfordshire, I remarked to Dave, "Why couldn't that have been a Knot!".  Amazingly, a couple of minutes later, a mid sized wader was picked up flying towards us over the spit.  My initial thought was that it was the Golden Plover returning, however, this was quickly dispelled when the bird banked to the left and revealed itself to be, you've guessed it, a Knot!  I was well chuffed, because this was a patch tick.  The bird landed quite close to the Snipe on the near spit and appeared to go to roost, however, after a few minutes it started to feed. We were joined by Jackie N and watched the bird feeding - I attempted some record shots, but in the gloom, they were worse than normal.  I have posted one here just for record purposes, but it is truly appalling!  I'm not sure what happened next, whether we were chatting too much, but on looking back for the bird, it was nowhere to be seen and in fact was never seen again, so had presumably flown off as silently as it had arrived.  Several other birders arrived, but unfortunately dipped.

Just about.........

Another great angle!

Alan S and Kevin H who stayed until after 3pm (I had to leave for the school run) were rewarded with the arrival of the 1st winter male Caspian Gull again at 3:15pm.

The Danish BHG white 507 was also present again briefly in the afternoon.