Thursday 25 September 2008

Autumn Thursday 1 - Spurn Point

Great Grey Shrike - early morning! [below]
Great Grey Shrike - afternoon "twitch"
Redstart (c) 2008 Jackie Dawson
Snipe (c) 2008 Jackie Dawson
Short-eared Owl - "in off Sea"
Record shot of Short-eared Owl
Record shot of Short-eared Owl
Short-eared Owl - back-end view Redstart
Redstart
Redstart
Record shot of Whinchat in flight
Pied Flycatcher
Stonechat
Stonechat
Snipe
Reed Bunting
Well, it's difficult to know where to start with today's birds! I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we had the greatest variety of birds ever since the course started five years ago, plus the greatest number of "lifers" for the majority of participants. In short, we had quantity & quality, and only some of the species we saw are pictured above. Ken said 5 birds were new to him, and this figure may have been higher from some on the course. We also saw 7 Little Egrets in the sky together at the same time, which is the highest number I've ever seen. There were also fairly unusual species for Spurn, as we saw 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, and this is a bird I've not seen at Spurn in 40 years of visits. If anyone from today wants to tell me their highlights. which I haven't mentioned I'll add them to this blog. I daren't tell the new 'students' who came for the first time today that things can only go downhill from here!

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