14th April

After the excitement of the Osprey sighting on Saturday it's been a quiet couple of days on Sunday and Monday. Dave Lowe had four LITTLE RINGED PLOVER (that's now double figures of this species) and a few YELLOW WAGTAILS but apart from that it's just been the usual SHELDUCK and OYSTERCATCHERS that seem to be about the only noteworthy birds that are always there.

This morning I was up earlier than usual and went to check out the floods. Fresh in were a pair of BLACK-TAILED GODWIT and a single GREENSHANK, the latter being another year tick. Satisfied with this I went back to work for the day. I was just winding up at around 5 pm when Ollie Padget messaged to say that he'd found a RING OUZEL in Burgess Field! Now, you know how excited I got from one being reported in the Cripley Meadow allotments last week but here was one that could actually be viewable! Myself and several other local birders all converged on Burgess Field where the target bird turned out to be very skulking.  Fortunately it was periodically relocated and we all got to get good albeit brief views of it. 

Male Ring Ouzel courtesy of the finder Ollie Padget

Social Distancing Twitching

It turned out that someone had taken a very blurry photo the previous day of a "pale looking Blackbird" that on closer inspection could well have been the same bird. It's even possible that this might be the allotment bird relocating a short distance to some habitat with more cover. April Ring Ouzels in their usual county location of Linkey Down can hang about for quite some time so it's certainly possible. Anyway, it was a wonderful chance to see this species on the patch and one I'll long cherish.

I more or less assumed that it would be gone the next day but the next morning Steve Jennings managed to locate it more or less in the same spot, allowing more local birders to get to see it. Let's hope it sticks around a bit longer!