Autumn Comes Early

Some favourable winds on the East Coast produced some pretty decent birds over the weekend. Fairly steady reports of scarce migrants on Saturday promised a good day on Sunday.
I popped down to Patrington haven for an hor on Saturday night it was fairly quiet but 7 ruff and a group of roosting little egrets made things interesting.
On Sunday I set off for Spurn with the intention of starting at the point and working my way back up.
This plan was scuppered when news of a citrine wagtail had me shooting back up to the warren.
Initially giving brief views on the spartina off the warren it soon headed towards canal scrape. I got into the hide in time for some decent views but then it got spooked and disappeared north.There were also 5 little egrets, 3 green sandpipers and a wood sandpiper on canal scrape.
From here I went to see a red backed shrike, this was again distant but showing well.
A report of an ictrine warbler at the point had me heading back south but a quick scan around didn't promise much.
Another icterine warbler was reported at cliff farm so being nearly time to go I thought I would call in. No sign at first but an appearance by a pied flycatcher was quickly followed up by an appearance from the Icky.2 lifers in the day!
I saw a report of a white winged black tern at Hornsea so had a ride out after tea with my daughter. Initially there was no sign but after about 20 minutesthe tern showed vey well down to about 30m.Finished up with 3 lifers.
I've had worse days;)

Distant Dotterel

I was pleased to finally add adotterel image to my collection the other night.
The first i heard of it was on Tuesday but I couldn't get there so fortunately it hung around and I was able to catch up with it on Wednesday.
The bird was feeding in a tilled field between Tansterne and West carlton which basically is in the middle of nowhere, I was lucky enough to arrive at the site with birders already on it.
It kept its distance while i was there and I would say the nearest it came was about 70m.
The light was good and coming from the right direction so all in all a pleasing nights work.

Kingfisher

I thought i'd spend a couple of hours at a local spot this evening looking for kingfishers.
I only had to wait 20 minutes until this fellow turned up.
He disappeared for a while then came back and stayed longer catching a single fish. he tried for another and failed and that seemed to signal his time to go.
Nice.