Off-Patch Birding

AKA
Filthy Tick-hungry Twitching!!

Guess where I went today?

Yup, off to Lodmoor I did toddle as soon as I heard the SBD hadn't buggered off overnight. I would have been there for 6, really I would, but after a couple of early starts and late nights involving alcohol, I really needed at least some sleep if I wanted to get there.

Anyway, my tardiness was rewarded with a lovely late birfday pressie, as I did indeed get to see this elusive little Yank. For nearly 2 whole minutes; feeding and looking very very pretty, before it casually ambled back behind the rushes it was spending the day behind... Prior to and after this it briefly moved past gaps in said rushes, but other wise it was a no-show. Apparently it did some flying about at 8, and had been in the open from 6-15 to 6-30 before that. Yup, really tarty bird, this one.

Also amazingly Short-billed Dowitchery, too. Those tiger-striped tertials were incredible! Body shape was also much longer and slimmer [for a dowitcher] than the LBDs I've seen. It could be today was markedly hotter and it was slimmed down and showing the tertials better than previously? I'm not going to mention the barring, which was clearly - oh wait, I just did.

But enough of that! Its an SBD, its gorgeous and I saw it! WOOHOO!!

I also yearticked Mr. Evans, who was not in a white suit of any kind! [Gasp!] [[Sign Of The Apocalypse!]] A good crowd mostly hung around for the hours of waiting, and included many other Famous Faces, both National and from Glorious Devon; [Famous Devon Birder, Devon Birder, Infamous Devon Birder, Devon Birder] and Bun being notable. ;)

The sun shone, Migrant and Southern Hawkers buzzed around [one of the former to point blank range - I hadn't taken the camera..] while Common Darters zipped around! 7 Sarnies sat by a mob of 80-odd BHGs in front of the waiting throng, with waders of a non-dowitchery persuasion being [in my sight] 2 Snipe, a Common Sand, a Dunlin, a Ringo, 4 Lapwing, and 6 Blackwit. Overhead a steady though light passage of Swallows was interrupted by a Hobby early on and a big boss female Sprawk right as I was leaving!

There was a lot of waiting, but it never got tedious and I never felt the onset of that grinding weight, the Prospect Of Horrific Dip feeling you get sometimes [Usually before you do..]. It was very much a sense of that the bird would show, but as and when it felt like it.


Short-billed Dowitcher... Brilliant! :D