It's not often I indulge in 'twitching' ( chasing after rare birds), but when deciding where to go birding today I realised that a friend had found a very rare blue-winged teal at one of our local patches: Winter's Pit. There are less than 13 sighting/year of this American bird in the UK each year. Unfortunately it was a rather dull female rather than the handsome male. When I arrived, there was obviously going to be no problem finding the bird, it was like a busy car park on a bird reserve. As I set off down the track alongside the main pit I was joined by Allan, a birding friend. It is always a pleasure to meet up and it was good to catch up. The last time we had seen each other was a few weeks ago when we dippedt ou on another twitch: the Covenham wryneck; hopefully today would be more successful. We knew where to find the teal as we could see a group of birders on top of a bank beyond the main pit. As we walked along the sea wall the sound of a skein of pink-footed geese made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up; a wild call. I was pleased to manage a quick photograph. We soon reached the group of birders and scrambled up the steep bank to join them. It's right over on the right on the edge of the reeds we were told. It was but unfortunately there was a bush in our line of sight. Eventually it moved out to join a group of shovelers. It was way too far away for successful photography, though, but it did show a flash of its blue wing and I managed a very poor record shot.
Wandering back to the car in the perfect autumn sun and wonderful light, I just had time to take a few shots of some black-tailed godwit before heading home. 31 species on the day increasing my monthly count by 20 so a good session.
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