Saturday 23 May 2009

YORKSHIRE hits the big time

What is presumably Norfolk's COLLARED PRATINCOLE relocating was present at New Swillington Ings' Astley Lake from 1917 hours this evening, best accessed from Fleet Lane in Oulton. Meanwhile, a singing male MELODIOUS WARBLER has spent the day singing from bushes at the Canal Scrape Zone at Spurn Point and a TEREK SANDPIPER spent an hour or more at Patrington Haven (from where it flew off east at 1835). Earlier, a BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER was found on Hatfield Moors, about a mile north of Boston Park car park (accessed along the nature trail 500 yards beyond the Memorial and present on the new scrapes behind the Prison Lakes). Just north of Yorkshire, the GREAT WHITE EGRET remains at Back Saltholme Pool (Cleveland).

Elsewhere, Dorset boasts two different WOODCHAT SHRIKES - a male for its second day in the Top Field paddocks at Portland Bill and another SW of Swanage at Dancing Ledge on the east side by the first gate, whilst an adult GULL-BILLED TERN flew downriver from Topsham (South Devon) at 1755. The long-staying BLACK-WINGED PRATINCOLE remains at Grove Ferry NNR (Kent) visible from the viewing mound.

A female RED-BACKED SHRIKE was along Warren Lane at Hopton-on-Sea (Norfolk) this afternoon, whilst 3 EUROPEAN BEE-EATERS flew west over Cley NWT visitor centre at 1400. A male RED-BACKED SHRIKE was on Dartmoor (South Devon) at the regular haunt near Warren House Inn in scrub by the track to Soussons Plantation, with another in Fife at Tentsmuir Point NR.