5 ticks in 90 minutes!

it must be a record for this late in the year and all down to a rising spring tide and a fresh east-south-easterly wind; after tea I headed down to the Humber expecting Black Tern at the very least and almost the first birds I saw were two adult Black Terns! there were a lot of birds moving with 300+ Teal and 70+ Shelduck milling around on the estuary along with 8 Common scoter and most surprisingly a flock of 11 Eiders; this species is fairly regular in late October - December but not in August; a couple of juvenile Arctic Terns were picked out amongst the passing Commons and a Guillemot put on a fine performance flying back out to seas on two occasions! finally a passing party of four Common Terns attracted the attention of an adult Arctic Skua completing the five up for the night. This takes the annual tally to 165 and the Scunny list to 187 with some silly birds still missing including amazingly Whinchat and Osprey plus that Green Sand

unexpected tick

after a morning around Far Ings NNR where the appalling lack of reserve management means that you cannot even see out of most of the hides let alone take a photo from them, I had logged six Common Buzzards together, the highest patch total ever and a few dragons -- still searching fro a Green Sand I had a scan over pursuits pit where there appeared to be a rather small sinensis Cormorant on the tern raft; it looked rather like a Shag but as I was looking into the sun I had to have a look from the other side to confirm that it was indeed a juvenile Shag, my first August patch record and a totally unexpected list addition taking me up to 160 for the patch and 183 in Scunny area; terrible digi-scoped images above; I went back in the evening when the light was better but was unable to see out of the hide!!!!! the bird though appeared to have gone as had the Black-necked Grebe but the Red-crested Pochard was still showing well

miss one hit another

another late night and with the forecast of rain I decided on a lie in --- phone going off at 06:43 with a text -- Osprey passing over KC's --- no direction given! --so I jumped up and headed out into thick black threatening cloud but scanning all the usual spots revealed nothing --- as I was up I had a quick look at Chowder and a juvenile Ruff filled one of the obvious holes in the list; 159 up the third highest August total to date; an adult Dotterel in with a big flock of Goldies took the Scunny year list total to 182 but big fly over raptors seem to be eluding me at the moment

its all luck

the waders were absent at Chowder this afternoon but as I walked back to the car the sun broke through briefly so I took the camera to have a go at the late nesting Common Terns; while photographing them a caffuffle in the edge of the reeds revealed a Little Grebe in hot pursuit of a juvenile Black-necked Grebe 158! If the sun had not come out I would probably have missed this bird! the eclipse drake Red-crested Pochard was on the same pit and the two star birds were together for a while. Still missing silly birds like Ruff, Green Sand, Whinchat, Black and Arctic Terns though

another 3 tick day

well nearly a month on from the last additions and a three tick day; as the rain cleared a party of four Wood Sandpipers flew west chiffing over Chowder Ness; a female Common Scoter was on the Humber and a long overdue Greenshank put in an appearance amongst a good gathering of waders; so 157 on the patch list but the afternoon also paid dividends with fairly brief views of the Audouin's Gull at Chapel St Leonards taking my Lincs list to 341 species BOU

In recent weeks the Scunny list has reached 181 with a few notable additions including Buff-breasted Sandpiper;