Friday 30 September 2016

Year List Record Broken

Headed down the South Mainland yesterday to see if I could clear up a few year ticks before the bad weather kicked in this weekend.

Quendale was our target destination for Great Reed Warbler, Red-breasted Flycatcher and Little Bunting but none of them were seen after half an hour and only birds of note were a Willow Warbler, Green Sandpiper and a Grey Wagtail.
30 minutes later we'd gone and come back after a visit to Hugh Harrop's, we'd been given better info to the location of the Little Bunting so we were heading off there when I spotted a few guys with scopes looking around the Loch of Hillwell.
This time of year I'll ask any birder if they've seen anything because you never know what they may have seen.
I shouted to the closest guy and he'd said they'd just had a PALLID HARRIER go by and drop down into the dunes at Quendale!!! I shot out the car and the two with the scopes pointed out to me where it landed and I was gone to find it!

Paula and I headed out to the site and I ran across the dunes to look for it, I got halfway out to where it had landed and could see it gliding away from me, it turned a few times to flash a great orange belly! it just screamed at me Pallid. It got a piece away and in the bins you could see the frosty forewings, it was great!
It dropped back into the dunes and I returned back to the car absolutely beaming, I'd just broken my own personal year list and was now on 182!

We paid a brief visit to the 20 or so twitchers who were gathering and watching it on a far away fence post, I had a brief look of the bird before asking if anything else was around to which one birder informed me of a male Pochard in among the Tufted Ducks at Spiggie! it was another year tick so we quickly raced off for it.

Arriving at Spiggie it took me only a few seconds to spot the stunning male Pochard in among the Tufteds, 183!!
With that we pretty much headed home, stopping in the Spiggie Hotel Bar for a coke or two and then we were off after a great day out.

Distant male Pochard, slap bang in the middle

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