A
mystery bird . . Hottoft Pit- Bank Lincolnshire WT nature resevre,
June 6th 2016
A morning of glorious sunshine
had me retracing my cycling steps along a fabulous cycle path and
evntually through Horncastle and on to Hottoft. A
marsh warbler had been reported
there and I had decided to try for this great to get bird instead of
carrying on to Old Moor RSPB reserve for the little bittern. I was
confident that the LB would still be there in a day or so.
Arriving at the reedbed
reserve,I found that I was alone and that other than the occasional
burst of sedge warbler song, there was silence. That is there were no
mimicking calls or songs from the rare acro.
A nice spotted flycatcher was
fly catching and for an hour or so the sedge and flycatcher were the
only birds of note. A cuckoo cuckooed.
Then low down in the bushes that
ran along the southern edge of the path I saw a small acrocephalus
warbler. It looked good. From what I initially saw I thought 'marsh.'
I photographed it and videoed it. The latter I completely forgot I
had taken until today when I was searching on my external hard-drive
for more photographs.
The bird disappeared into the
undergrowth and a couple of local birders had brief views and thought
the same as me, marsh.
They left happy with their
identification, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Now many years ago when in my
early twenties I had had a personally embarrassing experience over
such an easy to identify yet mega rare back then, Pallas' warbler.
I had found one in Well's wood,
the dell, and had run like a headless chicken to find my mates. I
bumped into a group of far more experienced than me at that time
birders and blurted out a description of stripes and wing bars. I
forgot to say the yellow rump! I remember even now blushing at their
laughter which was probably well meant but that embarrassed me at the
time.
Sitting in the hide in the
evening with images on the viewfinder of my camera, I started to be
unsure of my id.of the warbler.
Phil Andrews, The Oracle had
received my initial text:
18:23
– wish I could get these photographs to you! This looks good . . .
. short bill, no warm brown to the rump . . .
And in return Phil texted:
Ready
to declare 251 marsh warbler?
I wasn't. I just wasn't sure
anymore.
20:50
Sorry mate. I don't think it is.feet look too dark. Not singing.
I camped nearby and was up early
hoping that the marsh warbler would be still there going through a
repertoire of mimicking song and calls. It wasn't and I cycled away
towards Old Moor and really put it to the back of my mind. That is
until I put a photograph on here a few days ago and alarm bells rang.
So have a look at the
photographs and the video and see what you think. Personally I will
put it down as the one I messed up this year, hope there aren't too
many cock ups and I won't be adding it to my list.
I am though very interested in
the lessons learnt from this bird. Even looking at the photographs
and video this morning has left me confused as there are pointers
that go both ways; reed and marsh.
Now away from all this acro
debate, I have been at the superb Spurn Bird Observatory for the last
three days and have been so lucky to have bee-eater and golden oriole
to add to the list. Two easy to identify birds, bold and colourful
each. So the year list is now on 254 and with honey buzzards just up
the road, OK fifty miles up the road and roseate terns and a possible
Bonaparte's gull both in Northumberland, things look good to beat the
year tick target for June of five birds. Well, six due to missing my
May target of twenty five birds by one.
More on monthly target projections next time. All the best everyone.
http://www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk/
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