On Saturday 29 April, local Lincolnshire birders Dave Roberts and Ben Ward decided to have a crack at a three figure birding day at Frampton Marsh. Dave has kindly written up the day and allowed us to share it with you. Hopefully it will inspire a few more of our visitors to try and join the 'TonClub'. I know I'm thinking about it now.
Over to you Dave....
___________________________________________________________________________________
The superb Frampton reserve continues to improve, year on year and can now rival some of the top reserves in the country. Ben Ward and myself decided to have a proper go at a daylist, we thought we could crack the 100 species mark with a bit of an effort. It was great to have the bird magnet with me again! We had originally planned to visit midweek but delayed it due to the wintry weather. It was a good move, as a few new birds were in and the wind had swung round to a more southerly or south westerly direction. Mind you, it was still chilly in the breeze.
Birding in the dark was a thrilling experience, strange and weird calls could be heard, we accepted that we couldn’t identify all of them but a wide variety of familiar sounds seemed amplified in the dark.
03:30am. As soon as we got out of the car, parking at the reservoir, a cetti’s warbler was blasting out song, also a reed warbler. Lapwings were very noisy, one close bird constantly calling sounded a bit owl-like at times. When daylight dawned we could see some lapwings with chicks, just hours old. A tawny owl was calling and ducks, skylarks, redshanks, snipe and geese were heard.
04:15am. With the first chinks of light came a flurry of chorus and lots of birds were added. A few silhouettes of ducks and swans could be made out.
04:49am. The pair of scaup were still on the reservoir.
05:00am. We walked down to the sea wall, via the far hedgerow. 3 turtle doves purred away nicely. At least 15 whimbrels showed. A whooper swan was with mutes. There were lots of ruff, some looking amazing, all in varying dress. We saw our first wheatear of the day. A splendid breeding plumage wood sandpiper brought our list to 66 by 07:00am. still at the reservoir area, further searching gave us a few hard to get birds like rook, green woodpecker, jay, buzzard and red-legged partridge.
08:30am. We drove round to the main car park, lots of coffee and some birding junk food fired us up for a walk around the reserve. 3 Mediterranean gulls, a pair and a single called and showed well. A cuckoo was singing and later, it or another flew around. There was a fairly high tide and lots of waders were roosting and preening. Knot, dunlin, blackwits, ringed plovers, grey plovers, turnstones, redshanks, little ringed plovers and a curlew sandpiper were welcomed into the notebook. A pair of Egyptian geese had a brood of five goslings. (later, 7 noted by another birder). This was amazing, as it was the first sighting here of this species this year! Where did they nest? Must have been off the beaten track. How far did the parents bring the family to get them there there? Six common terns rested on one of the islands. Corn bunting sat up and sang at the far side of reedbed scrape. Two marsh harriers seen from sea bank. We had registered 90 species soon after 09:00am.
Next up, it was the hike to the Witham mouth. The tickometer slowed down considerably from here on in. Nothing on the sea, not much in the bushes. Two uncooperative ring ouzels and some feral pigeons were the only additions over the next two hours. We saw lots more whimbrels and a couple more wheatears showed. A fourth turtle dove was at the mouth and flew inland.
Early pm. Back at the scrapes, couldn’t wait to get back to the visitor centre for more coffee. We located the resident barnacle goose and spotted a peregrine fly over the reserve. The first of twenty odd yellow wags was seen. The grasshopper warbler proved very elusive, I didn’t hear it, but Ben did. List up to 100 by mid afternoon. The word had somehow got round that we were going for it and people were asking “what you up to now, lads?” This drove us on.
4:30pm. Hard work to add anything new now. A couple of hours back on the sea wall produced little stint and pintail. Another marsh harrier, this time a mature tri-coloured adult was a joy to watch at close range. We finished up on 104 full species. ( sparrowhawk, jay and grasshopper warbler by Ben only). We never saw or heard a song thrush all day. Reserve warden Toby informed us that this was the first time that a three figure count had been notched in a single day. I somehow think this total won’t stand for too long at this ever-improving site. Also seen was a white wagtail. We departed the reserve around 8:30pm.
List, and counts;
Thank you very much for the write up Dave and congratulations to you and Ben as the current day list record holders. How long will they hold the title for....?
As a side note, and while we're talking records, we do have a VC list of 60 in a day and will hopefully be setting a 3 hour Big Sit total (one location for three hours, all birds seen and heard and BirdTrack'ed). If any fancies taking on these birding challenges, or wants to set a total of their own (ie, heard only, photographed etc) then the reserve is all yours!!
The more you're out the more you see - https://twitter.com/BoyWonderBirder