Wednesday 30th May: Red-necked Phalarope!

Even though we're now right at the end of May as we've still got water on the floods I've been dutifully visiting the Meadow every day to see what's about. There's been precious little to show for my efforts up until now though over the last few days there had been a pick-up in RINGED PLOVER numbers with 7 seen yesterday as well as 6 OYSTERCATCHERS.

Today I wasn't able to visit until the early evening but it was soon apparent that there'd been a mini fall of waders with several dozen dotted about the floods, all disinclined to continue their migration due to the relatively poor weather conditions. However, the highlight and what will almost certainly end up being the bird of the year was a wonderful adult summer plumaged RED-NECKED PHALAROPE that was swimming about and feeding energetically in the middle of the water at the north end. This species is nationally scarce with just a handful of records across the entire country each year though they do breed in small numbers in the outer Hebrides. What's more it's just the 5th or 6th record for the county and certainly the first ever record for the Meadow, so it's quite a bird! I put the word out and over a dozen people came to see it before it grew too dark. 

As conditions were decidedly gloomy and the bird was rather distant, 
this video footage was the best that I could manage

Unusually, for this species it's the male which incubates the eggs and is consequently more drab and this smart bird is therefore probably a female.

Alongside the Phalarope were numerous other waders. The full list was as follows:

2 Greenshank (a year tick)
2 Redshank
4 Sanderling
3 Dunlin
23 Ringed Plover
3 Oystercatcher
4 Shelduck

So by far the best day of wader passage in its own right, and with a wonderful rarity to boot. It's days like this that keep a patch worker going, slogging away day after day for normally scant rewards.

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