An exciting but frustrating week, well one day at least, on the reserve. The day in question was the 8th of September and a routine scan of South Scrape turned out to be anything but when a pale and elegant wader sent alarm bells ringing. A stunning non-breeding/winter plumaged Wilson's phalarope shimmied on the water before stalking behind and island, never to be seen again :( A few more details can be found here. As incredible as it sounds, it wasn't the only phalarope to be seen that day. While many had an eye on the Wilson's last known location, our eagle-eyed visitor intern Murray picked up a juvenile red-necked phalarope flying through. There was some confusion initially between visitors regarding the two phalaropes and although all were disappointed not to see the Wilson's a fresh juvenile red-necked 10 metres away was a nice consolation. Not content with finding one scarce wader, Murray then picked out a Temminck's stint while showing everyone the red-necked phalarope. Top visitor engagement work Muzza! A wood sandpiper and several little stint rounded off an impressive pool of waders and a great afternoon's birding.
Waders et trois - Dan Newton
Temminck's stint and red-necked phalarope - Ian Ellis
Wood sandpiper and red-necked phalarope - Ian Ellis
Wood Sandpiper - Ian Ellis
Well that was only one day of the week, here are the sightings maps for the 7th and 9th.
I've not got round to doing a weekly sightings map but from here you can see Middle Scrape and South Scrape are looking good with potential also coming form the Marsh Farm reservoir. We have one more day of excavations on North Scrape and then some tidying up elsewhere. If you'd like to know more about what we're doing with our machinery then here's an explanation.
The black tern that drew many out to the reservoir wasn't seen after the 9th but turtle doves still remain around the barn and were enjoyed by many. While not everyone's cup of tea, Tabs Head could turn absolutely anything up, and while not massively rare, we've had pied and spotted flycatcher, redstart, willow warblers, chiffchaffs and lesser whitethroats all being seen down there. With some good tides this weekend, a few skuas will no doubt be around. Long-tailed, Arctic and Great have all been seen recently.
Black tern - Ian Ellis
Pied flycatcher - Paul Sullivan
Arctic Skua - Paul Sullivan
As mentioned above, high tides are with us this week, though the times mean evening visits may be best. Settle down on the sea wall or scan south scrape for spotted redshank, greenshank, common, green and wood sandpipers, little stint, curlew sandpipers and someone PLEASE put us out of our misery and find a pectoral sandpiper. We had three together last year.... surely just one isn't unreasonable?
I'll leave you with one of our more unusual and most camouflaged species. This is the caterpillar of a poplar hawk moth, which, to give a sense of scale, is bigger than your little finger.....
That's all from me this week. Enjoy your weekend everyone, and if you can't wait 7 days to know what's going on here, keep your finger on the Lincolnshire Wash Reserves pulse by following us on Twitter and giving us a ‘like’ on Facebook. Alternatively if you enjoy taking pictures and have a Flickr account then please join our group and share your images with everyone. If you are thinking of paying a visit from near or far please do check out the tide times which can make a big difference to both numbers and variety of birds seen on the day.
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder