American Black Tern, Lincolnshire

After a busy day on Saturday of painting and shopping news of the American Black Tern in Lincolnshire went straight past me, maybe it was because I kept seeing Black and White Warbler, Northern Waterthrush and Solitary Sandpiper and I couldn't contemplate another mega out of my reach so it wasn't until late at night when I sat down with the laptop that I realised I may have missed a localish Mega! Unfortunately I'd got several plans and meetings scheduled during the day so had to wait my time and hope it would hang on.

Luckily the bird was still present on Sunday, and even better, it was still there when I could get across so as afternoon approached I met up with Dave and we shot across to Covenham Reservoir in Lincolnshire dodging a few hefty thunderstorms en-route.

On arrival we were straight onto the bird, we dodged another shower and moved along the dam wall for a closer look, the bird performed brilliantly and showed well for the duration of our stay. I didn't get any photos but there are loads on the Lincolnshire Bird Club Website such as this cracker by Robert Hardy



Also present were tonnes of Pied with a sprinkling of Yellow Wagtail lots of Great Crested and two Red-necked Grebes. Interestingly, the two grebes showed a great deal of yellow on the lower mandibles, could this be potential for the US holboellii sub-species? Check out Russel Hayes photo below, again with more photos on the Lincolnshire Bird Club website.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! (Savi's Warbler, Booted Eagle, Rufous Turtle Dove and Cretzschmar's Bunting UPDATE

A beautiful day yesterday and again today but (un)fortunately I'm flat out at work at the moment so couldn't make the most of the good weather and go out birding so spent the weekend report writing.

The Spurn area sounded good today with only it's second ever Savi's Warbler (only other was 1984) recorded at Sammy's Point - technically just outside the Spurn recording area I guess but not by far. The winds are set for SE for a bit so there could be more following on from the Red-rumped Swallow and Bee-eater from last week and today's Savi's. Typically elusive I'm glad I had good views of the Old Moor bird last spring otherwise I might have been having a frustrating evening...

Back home over the weekend I added Willow Warbler to my garden list, my 70th garden tick, and today a great surprise as a Cuckoo flew towards North Duffield Carrs over the back behind the house, number 71! A very pleasing addition to my garden list!


Common Cuckoo © Gabriel Buissart 2007

There has been some 'interesting' reports over the weekend, firstly a Cretzschmar's Bunting in Dorest that didn't materialize into anything (though there was an Ortolan in the county), a Rufous Turtle Dove was apparently photographed in a Suffolk garden but has not been seen since (with some grainy shots and talk of dodgy goings on) and today a probable 'dark-phase' Booted Eagle was reported in Lincolnshire (at the same site a White-tailed Eagle was reported 4 days ago)...

I'll hopefully get into the Lower Derwent Valley for a bit of patch work this week at some point to see what I can catch up with. I might try and connect with Ollie and Jono's Water Pipit at York University too. Then there's the Black Scoter too...