From Yellow to Red

24th April - A morning visit was very quiet, though surprisingly, Collared Dove was new for the year!  Noticeably fewer warblers were singing than in the past week.  A Garden Warbler in the railway hedge and a Sedge Warbler in the slightly odd location of the hedge in the field north of the pit were the best.  The eastern paddock held 4 Yellow Wagtails, which are always nice to see, but otherwise little of note.

In the early afternoon, rather than a return visit to the pit, I decided to visit nearby Marlow low grounds, to check out the floods there.  My reward was my first Lesser Whitethroat of the year and a couple of Mandarin, but otherwise fairly quiet as well.  I had left myself about 20 minutes for a quick check of the pit before school pick-up to see whether anything had dropped in during the morning.  En route, I took a call from Mr Nicholls saying that a Spotted Redshank had been reported there.  Aagh!!!  Bad move visiting the low grounds, I thought, still I was almost on site.  I raced to the lake edge and couldn't see anything, being directed on to a Snipe by a visiting birder.  On to the viewpoint and thankfully there it was, distant and roosting on the back of the spit - relief and patch tick!  After a few minutes, it was disturbed by a few lapwing and flew closer calling and it eventually ended up on the near spit.  It was in transitional plumage, though still looked fairly pale, but I was grateful for the local grapevine and for not being at work this afternoon - thanks to Simon R for finding it.  This is a rare bird at Little Marlow and pretty scarce in the county - I remember missing a bird at the pit about 10 years ago in August when I first moved here and it was yet to be my local patch.