Lesser Scaup

This small North American duck has been frequenting Freiston Shore RSPB in South Lincolnshire since Tuesday, disappearing for a couple of days and then reappearing in a drainage ditch on Friday. A discussion ensued with my friend Chris Orders and we initially pencilled in Sunday as a day to pay a visit, the forecast putting us off a bit. Sunday morning dawned and with it at least 6-7 inches of snow, a quick text confirmed a cancellation of our trip. An hour and a half later the bird was reported on Birdguides and so another discussion ensued, was the weather that bad, the roads could be clear, if it was that bad we could always turn round. We decided to go for it. Mad!

The journey was pretty non-eventful, the roads and the snow vanishing before our eyes, we only saw 3 cars in various ditches along the way! We arrived on site with a gale blowing straight from the continent, it was a bit chilly, to say the least, but we made our way to the hide where the bird had been spotted from. On scanning a flock of Tufted Ducks at the furthest point possible from the hide I picked out the bird with its' head tucked firmly under its' wing, we had 'bagged' it! We walked a bit closer to the bird in order to see if we could get any photos, the weather being rather bracing, which didn't help with that particular process, but we managed to get a few shots.

As can be seen, not the greatest pieces of photography that you will ever see, but you can see the bird! Chris managed to get far better digiscoped shots, one of which is below.

copyright Chris Orders

A bird that is still pretty rare this side of the pond, with about 100 accepted records. Told from the more common Greater Scaup by its' more diminutive size (it is smaller than a Tufted Duck), the crown is peaked at the rear, giving it the appearance of a crest (the Greater Scaup has a 'smooth' appearance to its' head), the wing-bar (not seen in these photos) above white on 'arm', but brownish-grey on the primaries (the Greater has all white), the grey vermiculation on the back is darker and the head has a more purple sheen, rather than green on a Greater.

A good bird, despite the 'challenging' weather conditions! Thanks to Chris for driving and Anne for the coffee!

More LBD shots

These are the last of the photo`s of the Long-billed Dowitcher from Sunday. The bottom one gives a rough idea of the size of the bird when compared to the Oystercatcher behind.

A top bird which gave the assembled crowd a good show!

Long-billed Dowitcher

The local patch is a bit stagnant at the moment, to say the least, can`t even rustle up a Dunlin! With this in mind I decided to stretch my `birding` wings a bit further on Sunday and see if I could catch up with the Long-billed Dowitcher at Freiston Shore in Lincolnshire. This place is only 40 miles away from where I live, so not too far and an easy enough drive.

The bird was easy enough to find, with approximately 40 birders staring through a hawthorn edge, it kind of gave the game away! It was constantly feeding, its head was in the water more than not and so the photo opportunities came few and far between, but I managed a few passable shots and these are the first of several that I will eventually post (I have got quite a few that I want to put up here, but not in one go).

The Long-billed Dowitcher is a vagrant to our shores, breeding in North America and East Siberia, but there are several records every year. The bird (to my eyes) is a bit like a cross-between a Common Snipe and a Black-tailed Godwit, indeed the bird is Snipe sized, with a very long bill and fairly long greenish legs.

After a lifetime of `local` birding and only venturing out further on holidays and rare occasions, I am slowly building a longer list of seen birds as this was another `lifer` to go in the book!