David, Malcolm and I went to
Owthorpe today hoping to catch up with a Great Grey Shrike that had been
present for three days. We arrived on
site at 08:40 and after parking walked along a bridal path to reach a ploughed
field where the bird had been reported.
There were some overhead wires running across the field and the bird was
being seen on them as well as hedges around the field.
When we reached the field,
there was no sign of the bird, but we could see another birder closer to the
Grantham Canal and with the bird being reported between the bridal path and the
canal we headed in the direction along a public footpath. There was a gap in the hedge of the field and
as I walked through it I flushed fifteen Grey Partridges that then flew over
the hedge and dropped into the first field.
I went back to join David and Malcolm, but they were now quite difficult
to see as they dropped into the furrows.
The other birder had seen us
reacting and joined us hoping we had the shrike as he hadn’t seen it and it had
spent over two hours here yesterday morning without seeing it. There was quite a lot activity in the hedge
in the far corner of the ploughed field with the overhead wires and so we
walked further to get a better view.
There were Blackbirds, a Fieldfare, Song Thrushes, Mistle Thrushes,
Chaffinches, Yellowhammers and a Reed Bunting but there was still no sign of
the shrike. At one point I counted
thirty Meadow Pipits on the wires, but it was now after 09:00 and there was
still no of the target bird.
Two other birders then joined
us whilst the other birder had to leave to go to work and about five minutes
after he had gone one of the other guys found it in a field behind us. He had seen it sat low down on a hedge but
when we looked it had disappeared again but then David found it perched at the
top of a small tree where it remained for a good twenty minutes before
eventually moving back along the hedge.
We managed to alert the birder who had left and he ran back to see it and
we started walking back to the car seeing the bird perhaps a little closer
before it started to move off again.
Our plan once we had seen the
shrike was to go to Blacktoft Sands if a White-rumped Sandpiper present yesterday
was reported, which it was and so when we got back to the car we left and
headed north.
There had been some odd spots
rain while we were at Owthorpe but as we moved north and east the weather
deteriorated and we passed through some quite heavy rain and it was still
raining when we reached Blacktoft Sands.
With it still raining and
being quite close to lunchtime we had our lunch before going to look for the
sandpiper. Two members of staff
repositioned a staff parking only sign to try and prevent people parking on the
grass as visitors had got stuck in the past following heavy rain and they also
gave the bad news that the White-rumped had disappeared.
It had done this yesterday and
so we went to the Singleton Hide hoping it would return. When we reached the hide it was quite full
and Malcolm and I initially stood to view the lagoon, although we did get a
seat latter as the crowd dispersed.
There were plenty of waders on the lagoon that included two Curlew
Sandpiper, 126 Dunlin, two Ruff, twenty Snipe, forty-plus Black-tailed Godwit
and two Redshank. There were also five
Shelduck and good numbers of Teal and a Water Rail were also observed.
We spent over two hours in the
hide but the White-rumped hadn’t been seen when we departed and wasn’t reported
later either. There was a nice male
Marsh Harrier and three female-types over the reedbed and a Sparrowhawk also
flew over and just before we departed several Ruff flew in and at the final
count there was also twenty-eight and there was also four Redshank and we had
also seen a flock of circa 500 Golden Plover In flight.
Female Marsh Harrier
Female Marsh Harrier
Female Marsh Harrier
Female Marsh Harrier
Female Marsh Harrier
Dunlin
Curlew Sandpiper
It had been a mixed day,
scoring with the Great Grey Shrike but dipping on the White-rumped Sandpiper,
which was my second dip on an American wader within a week in what has been a
poor autumn overall.
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