Passage Waders.

After a very disappointing week in terms of twitching the last few days have seen a slight uptick in quality. Last Thursday saw me make a quick visit to the meadow to twitch the Avocet that Adam had found the previous day. Upon arrival I quickly located the bird fast asleep in the north arm of the floods. Eventually it perked up and had a preen allowing me to capture some record video footage for posterity. A nice bird constituting only my second patch record and a decent patch yeartick which I thought I had missed out on. Saturday saw me head to the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust Reserve, Brandon Marsh NR, to help Matthew Bruce man the NGB stand at their wildlife day. A couple of brief sojourns to the hides over the course of the day produced two very smart, summer plumaged Wood Sandpipers. Always a pleasure to see, these stunning, delicate waders with their striking spangled plumage were a nice treat after the trials of the previous few days. Overall I was highly impressed with Brandon Marsh and its ripe potential. The rest of the afternoon was spent drinking beer in the sun and skywatching in the vain hope that a Honey Buzzard or Black Kite might deign to drift over. Well there are worse ways to spend a Saturday...

Brucey working hard