Whinchat at Maxey

It must be something to do with Wednesdays. Last week there were two of these superb little birds at my local patch of Maxey pits, but they were gone on Thursday morning. Today, another one of these birds was present, constantly distant and always on the move. I wonder if he will be there tomorrow?

Maxey is looking pretty good at the moment for a nice wader or three, the water levels seem to be under control and so there is a lot of mud exposed, just waiting for something to drop in. As well as the Whinchat, this morning there was a Grey Plover in almost full breeding plumage, a scarcity in these parts, although it was my third one of this year. Always a nice bird to see though, especially in their breeding finery.

Crap photo, great bird!

Hopefully, a sign of good things to come.

Three`s a crowd

Proof, if it were needed that we have a good community of birders in the PBC area. On Saturday I received a phone call from Josh Jones to tell me there was a Sanderling present at Tanholt gravel pits, a working quarry close to Peterborough, but I had other commitments that day, so was unable to go and just hoped that it would hang on until Sunday.

Sunday morning dawned and with it 5 inches of snow. Should I go to Tanholt for this lovely wader, not an annual tick on my PBC list by any means? I pondered for a while until Mike Weedon rang me to say there was now a Grey Plover present with the Sanderling. That clinched it, I was soon on the drive, shovel in hand clearing the snow and was at Tanholt within 10 minutes. The birds were distant, but with some careful stalking on my half I was able to get the above `passable` shots. Two more `ticks` on my PBC year list, oh and the third (three`s a crowd) were 7 Dunlin, also present, but too distant for any kind of shot!

My PBC year list is now at a fairly healthy 111 species.

Grey Plover

The Grey Plover is a bird that breeds in the Arctic with adults leaving here in July and August and migrating south. The birds start to arrive on our shores in July with juveniles arriving a month later. They spend the winter on the coasts of Europe, Africa, southern Asia, North and South America and Australia and are capable of flying 6,500 km non-stop.

The bird is known in America as the Black-bellied Plover due to having a stunning black belly in its breeding finery, the pictures below are of a bird in its winter plumage, so not quite as fine. These birds spend the winter months all around the coast of Britain, especially The Wash in East Anglia and will start to migrate north in May. Recently the winter population in Britain has increased with as many as 53,000 birds being present.

The bird below was present at Titchwell RSPB in Norfolk a few weeks back and was surprisingly approachable which lent itself to me being able to get these digiscoped images.