Crikey, where to start... this week has been much less straight forward than last week. It all started with a tweet from an occasional regular letting me know about a Temminck's stint from the 360 Hide on the evening of the 21st. Unfortunately, as is often the case here, there were only a few birders in the hides so not many could enjoy it, and as it only showed briefly the following morning not many visitors were able to see it.
Brevity was also the name of the game for our second highlight of the week, confusing and puzzling would also be very apt too.
Mystery Grebe - Scott BaileyThis head scratcher was seen well on the morning of the 24th and was only relocated late in the afternoon. Once again not many were able to enjoy this incredibly educational/confusing bird and, although looking settled, it wasn't seen the next day. If you want to have a go at identifying it yourself, have a look at the features above and see if you can decide if it's a black-necked or slavonian grebe. The confirmed identity can be found here.
And so to the weeks sightings, and it must be a good week when a pectoral sandpiper is relegated to the third best bird of the week but that goes to show just what a great site we are for them as the bird present on the evening of the 22nd was our 6th or 7th (not sure if some spring records are the same bird or not) for the year!
Passerines have been in short supply so a snow bunting was a nice find on the scrapes on Saturday morning, hopefully a good sign that conditions are right to get a resident flock over the winter. A whinchat was also around Frampton on the 21st and another was on the Freiston stewardship strips on the 24th. Small movements of meadow pipits and skylarks overhead were ongoing throughout the week and skein of 60 pink-footed geese flew over Freiston on Tuesday.
Pink-footed Geese - Neil Smith
The party of 90 brent geese on Thursday morning were a sign of things to come, coinciding nicely with a marked increase in both teal and wigeon, small parties of which have been seen coming into the reserve from height on several evenings.
To mix things up and keep it interesting I'll finish with waders this week...... as well as the Temminck's stint on Saturday, the sanderling seen at Freiston on the 25th was a new wader for the month. This takes us to the magic 27, a wader species total we have peaked at several times but never been able to increase on. Will this be the month that the Lincolnshire Wash Reserves set the record for most wader species seen on a RSPB reserve in a single month? We'll let you know next week.
Both little stint and curlew sandpiper numbers continue to dwindle, though both were present and regularly sighted all week. There is no increase on the 4 spotted redshank seen last week though greenshank observations have dropped significantly. On the up are black-tailed godwit with a whopping 5,000 seen on the 22nd, and following suit are the numbers of bar-tailed godwit hidden amongst them. There are now many more golden plover and grey plover touching down on the scrapes, though not quite reaching the count of 180 knot at the start of the week.
Raptors continue to be seen well, with merlin, peregrine and marsh harrier picked up passing through the reserve daily, though this is the first week of the autumn when we haven't seen a hobby. Could this be it until May?
Migrant Hawker - Neil Smith
And finally a nod to our invertebrate friends who are still hanging as the temperatures start to dwindle. Clouded yellow butteflies have had a great year and those seen on Sunday are no doubt locally hatched after a good immigration of this species earlier in the summer. Any large dragonflies seen around the reserve are likely to be migrant hawkers, as captured brilliantly by Neil above, and can be seen hawking over the pool edges. Will you be able to catch up with one this weekend before they go the same way as our hobby?
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder