Whimbrel, along with Blackwits, are about the most regular of the scarce large waders on patch and most Springs will turn up a few birds. So at about 11am, with a quick minor detour, I spent all of 30 seconds looking through Alan's scope at a nice pair of Whimbrel. We continued on our walk, which was very nice in the warm sunshine - birds on note were a Yellow Wagtail flying off from the cattle field and a couple of singing Whitethroats.
On our way back to the car, I received another text from Alan saying that Jackie N had found a male Mandarin on the east side of the lake, but only viewable from the east side - this was unfortunate, as our walk did not take us this way, so that year tick would have to wait.
Fortunately, I had a spare hour late afternoon, so made my way down again. I drove straight to the east side and within a few minutes was looking at a distant male Mandarin. It is surprising how scarce these are on site, particularly as it is not too difficult to find them on the Thames nearby - I average about one sighting a year and usually of wandering males. Suddenly, for some unknown reason, the Mandarin took off and flew towards the main island where I lost sight of it. Then, the two Whimbrel revealed their continued presence by taking off and calling. I watched them distantly as they flew around but then descended back to the spit. I decided then to drive quickly back to the west side, as I wanted to take some record shots. On arrival, the two birds were quite close on the near spit, so I grabbed some reasonable records. They were calling fairly constantly and took off several times, but kept returning, but they were obviously looking to leave. They were still there when I left at 4:30pm but were seen to fly off high north just 30 minutes later. An added bonus was that the Mandarin had also flown to the near sand spit, so I was able to take some shots of him too!
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| I like this one - Mandarin shaking, tern looking skywards |
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