Stone the chats

Not really a problem to find, but you've got to get out there. Here's Mr Blain phone-digi-scoping one of them.

What's left?

So...I think I'm in with a shot of around 20 more species (given my normal birding habits and sites)
Black-necked Grebe - always possible at Radders and H-O CP, P F and W F Gooses at Radwell - almost annual.  Whooper too would not seem unlikely.  Hen Harrier and Short-eared Owl around Thurleigh - maybe a Marsh Harrier but running out of time - likewise Osprey.  Waders - might get a Little Stint, Ruff, Curlew Sand or Black-tailed Godwit on a lunchtime trip to Broom - but that isn't going well having missed out on finding the Pec (SCB and I went to GLE at lunch in the rain, just before Martin found it).  Woodcock - no problem in the winter woods.  Med Gull - might get one if I can find some gulls to look through.  Rock and Water Pipit are possible if I crank up the visits to Willington and Broom - wandering the edges of the lakes.  Waxwing, Woodlark, Ring Ouzel, Brambling - all possible if I do a bit of Viz migging (which I don't generally!) and assuming we get an influx.  Stonechat - unlucky not to find one but not always that easy. 

Plenty to look for and winter is about the best time for my sites - I'd swap all the above for an American Wigeon at Radwell mind you...

Stuff left to find...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote out a list of birds I consider it still possible to find/ jam in on before the year end:

• Water Rail
• Merlin
• Ring Ouzel
• Stonechat
• Marsh Harrier
• Hen Harrier
• Goldeneye
• Woodcock
• Jack Snipe
• Short-eared Owl
• Yellow-legged Gull (time running out!)
• Brambling
• Woodlark
• Rock Pipit

If I give Messrs. Hicks, Burgess and Palmer a run for their money and get to 130, I will be quite pleased. What's on our other correspondents' hit-lists?

DOM

Making up for lost time...

Having missed the key Spring migration period through illness, I am more than making up for lost time this autumn. Once again, little-watched backwaters are reaping the dividends for me. This morning, the disused quarry on Common Road, Potton (site of recent Tree Pipit and Peregrine) again produced the goods with a fly-over, unseen but unmistakable, calling Grey Plover.

P-yuu-eeet!..........p-yuu-eeet!........p-yuu-eeet! (with perhaps a German umlaut over the 'u' to be precise). Sounding exactly like Volker Arnold's recording here.

Very, very pleased with that one. But serendipitous indeed.

SFYL: 120
On foot: 107

Potton Peregrine

A dawn walk around a local disused sand pit (site of a Tree Pipit two weeks ago), yielded a flyover Peregrine. It was a misty morning, but it was a large bird, with an apparently full crop. A nice surprise and 119 for the year now - 102 of which were found on foot within a three mile radius of Potton.

I'm hoping I can give Roger, Matt and Martin a run for their money, but I don't much fancy my chances as the autumn progresses...

DOM

Dabbling in dabblers

Decided to have a poke around the brick pits to see whether any of the mass of Garganey from the Washes had found their way into Beds with our first arriving winter ducks. Did not get a garg but a dabbler was Beds self year ticked none the less when I found this Pintail lurking in Quest Pit, looked most like a young bird.
Maintaining the quality of record shots on this blog... here it is,

Spooning at Broom

SCB 150th?  Good....er...prediction Darren.  The way the sunlight catches the wings in this photo is magnificent (Mr Blain really has an eye (phone) for a photo.  A shock to us all but very welcome and very rare.  The second record at Broom and another notable record for Gypsy Lane East.

Remember kids, it's not the site, it's the coverage...