UK First Draws in the Crowds

Grey-headed Lapwing?! Surely not! A first for Britain (and second for Europe?!) appearing on bank holiday Monday, just a couple of hours away…I had to go for this one. In essence, this was a cinch; apart from the longish drive (largely uneventful), it couldn’t have been simpler: I parked up, asked someone where to go, walked a fair bit (simply because I parked in the wrong place), found the crowds, and there was the bird: a full-blown adult gobsmacker all the way from Pakistan, pecking around in a grassy field with a couple of Oystercatcher. (I wondered how incredible it must have been for the finder to see this in the bins for the first time when scanning through the Avocets and Dunlin.) Within seconds I had photographic proof of species number 431 for the list. I watched it for a while, through the binoculars, the scope and the camera lens as it wandered about in search of food, occasionally taking flight but never moving far. I didn’t stay for long, and stopped off at local woodlands on the way home. Once the rain had stopped, I had fun hunting down Wood Warbler and Pied Flycatcher and got pleasing shots of the latter (and a blurred shot of the former). I look forward to trying to get better shots one day, when the weather’s better.