Saturday 15 December 2012

Yay! Buff-bellied Pipit


Oh hang about, got one of these on Shetland.  Now all and sundry have got one.  With the bloody Hornemann's last weekend, Shetland is getting devalued week by week.  It'll be a Pechora at the Wetland Centre next week, if they haven't already had one...

Nursing a large bottle of water and an even larger hangover, I wobbled up to the flats to be picked up by Mr L and Henry and whisked over to the Queen Mother ressy on the other side of town.  The bird was a bugger to find, bar the fact a thousand people were looking at it as it marched up and down the concrete beach within spitting distance.  OK, much better views than the one in Spiggy Bay, but not the beautiful back-drop of the Shetland bird.  After rattling off a good few hundred shots, some of which are surprisingly in focus, I started looking for the Red-necked Grebe and the Long-tailed Duck also in residence.


The grebe refused to come over to the London side of the reservoir, so no bonus tick there, and it looked like the duck was being as equally un-co-operative hugging the northern bank too.  Finally it did the decent thing and flew over to the boat club thus becoming the closest view I've had of this smart duck.  A 2 tick day for London, and my hangover got a bit better.

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