Friday 17 May 2013

Stunning Red-spotted Bluethroat

07.00 at the viewing ramp at Hookers with CT was very entertaining with Reed, Sedge and Cetti's Warblers in full voice along with Common and Lesser Whitethroats. The Bittern was booming every few minutes and a couple of Bearded Tits calling, Common Terns were screaming overhead, 2 Cuckoo's were flying around and calling, up to 3 Hobby's were trying to find food in the cold north east wind and the Marsh Harriers were doing there usual thing.
In The Hayfields the Lapwings are still present as was a Yellow Wagtail but not much else of note.
A walk to the pines found the usual reed bed warblers, Marsh Harriers and 2 more Hobby's. Over the lake 100s of Swifts and smaller numbers of Hirundines.
While parked at the south end of the ARC looking through the Hirundines, I received a call from DW about a Bluethroat near the fishing boats, needless to say a couple of minutes later I was there watching a stunning male Red-spotted Bluethroat fairly distantly at first. After a while it hopped towards the crowd and jumped up on to a kerb in full view, it then flew a couple of hundred metres towards the fishermans hut. As I had got a great shot of it I was very happy. It was soon relocated and moved up to the containers on the beach where it performed superbly hopping towards me at times to close to focus. Needless to say I spent most the afternoon with the bird. Many thanks to Patrick the DBO assistant warden for finding this stunning bird,
This evening at the south end of the ARC a Little Ringed Plover the first one for some time.
 I make no apologies for the Bluethroat overload in this post








4 comments:

  1. Great pics Martin, a good reward for a so-so spring so far!

    Nick

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  2. Great shots Martin a stunning bird well caught

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  3. Really enjoyed these shots as sadly I couldn't get away to see it.

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