Sunday 17 June 2012

Little Bittern Rickmansworth

I'm enjoying some shut eye when I hear the phone bleep at 7.30am this morning. It's Jim and he's in the hide on Cornmill Meadow looking at a sandpiper. He can't decide if it's Green or Wood so needs another pair of eyes on it. At 8am I'm in the hide and must admit what I thought was going to be a straight yes its Wood turned out to be a little more difficult. Slight eyeline, legs difficult to tell as it's in the muddy edge, does have tail bars and they're quite thick. Didn't give a single call or a any sign of underwing so we remain unsure.
Wood or Green ?

We took off for Rickmansworth Aquadrome along the M25 which was a joy for once. On arrival we headed along the footpath between the lakes and turned left (west) along the River Colne. The bird had just flown!
After a wait of around 30 minutes it flew from the reed bed and landed infront of the crowd of around 30 birders / twitchers / photgraphers / dog walkers and gave reasonable views although never really came right out from the reed bed. A great little bird thats reported to have been in the area for a month or so.



Whilst waiting we had nice views of Kingfisher and Hobby too and nice to see two local birders there when Barry & Harry turned up. All in all a very short but productive morning and I made it home in good time to keep the family happy on Fathers day.
That's 245 different species seen this year now and only five short of my 250 target.
Must say Rickmansworth Aquadrome is another new place visited as a result of the chase and it really was a cracking place to visit. I'll go back now It's been put on my radar by this twitch.

PS: we've settled on Green since getting back and doing some homework on bill length, leg colour, eye striping etc. which gives Jim his 100th patch tick of the year, congratulations Bro.

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