Green-winged Teal on Colyford Marsh

When I got the text from Steve saying that there was a Green-winged Teal on the Colyford scrape, I naturally went down to the hide at Colyford Common but once there I noticed that everyone else appeared to be looking from the Farm Gate. I phoned Gav who 'reassured' me that it was most probably impossible to see from the hide! It had been on the main scrape when Steve first spotted it but had later flown to the network of small pools to the north. These are indeed extremely difficult to see from the relatively low vantage point of the hide, but birds can be seen if they stand out on one of the tussocks. After waiting for about an hour (it seemed longer) it suddenly appeared (Mr. Ben shopkeeper style). It then jostled around a bit with other drakes before going to sleep. It was way too distant for photos, being a long way beyond the back edge of the scrape but I managed to get a couple of identifiable digiscoped record shots. I'll count it on the photo patch yearlist because I may not get a chance for any better photos and it definitely is identifiable. Not only on the patch photo yearlist but also a patch first!

This is a lightly cropped digiscoped shot giving an idea of the distance.

No. 36 Green-winged Teal
(I'm not counting Teal...yet)

Before all the excitement of a patch first, I'd been down at the Axe Yacht Club trying to photograph gulls from the car. There were a lot of Common Gulls just offshore but they were a bit too distant to get shots as nice as I wanted and I didn't fancy walking down to the water's edge in the wind and rain. So I can't complain really can I? I did get photos of these two though....

No. 37 Great Black-backed Gull

No.38 Herring Gull