A Patch Twitch, It's Been Ages....

I've been out twice today in response to text messages, firstly to see a Sanderling and some Ringed Plovers on the beach near The Yacht Club, There was a Turnstone too which I could see Steve was stalking half a mile away along the beach. I have to admit I was simply too lazy to bother with it; after all I'd got 'stuff to do'. After 'doing stuff' I was just making a cuppa when I got another text from Steve, his dad Ian had found a Wood Sandpiper on Colyford Marsh. I love Wood Sandpipers and had never seen a spring bird before so I abandoned my newly mashed tea and rushed up there. Ian was still there and later Ian M joined us too. The bird was showing superbly and the plumage was very different to the usual Autumn birds we get here. It was on the small scrape, which is happily near enough to the hide for photos to be a possibility. After my disastrous photography attempts in Norfolk I was glad to see that a few came out quite well. A Common Sandpiper also wanted it's photo taken but 12 gorgeous summer plumaged Dunlin didn't and stayed on the large scrape, out of range of even the most determined digiscoper ;-). A nice bonus came in the shape of a Hobby, my first of the year (surprisingly we didn't see one in East Anglia). I got a photo of this too, a poor one but it shows one of two pale patches which it had on the back of its head, does that mean it's a first summer bird? You can see it does have some orange around the undertail but it didn't have much in the 'trouser area'.

Young Hobby?

Common Sandpiper, pretty drab compared to this...


Oooh.....

Aaah...

etc... etc...

Bostin'!

And a video: