Trip reports
Waders and wildfowl
Sunday, 21 September 2008
It's sometimes easy to forget how dependant birdwatchers are on all the 'elements' being in place on one day. For although it was a beautifully sunny day on the Point of Ayr, the wind failed to be so obliging and was instead rewarding the East Coast and Norfolk with vagrant after vagrant. Still, it would be wrong to say that this in any way made for a bad experience, because the reserve and the beach were beautiful and all those on the coach had a lovely day. A search of the scrub didn't yield more than some Blackcaps, Willow Warblers, Goldfinches, Reed Buntings and a really attractive family of Coal Tits. Also, the wind failed to blow in any terns, sea birds or Leach's Petrels and so the first half of the day didn't make for the best bird watching.
But Point of Ayr really comes into its own when the tide comes in and so it proved today. Hundreds and hundreds of Shelduck, Curlew and Redshank were soon joined by scurrying groups of Ringed Plovers and Dunlin, not to mention the occasional Godwit, Whimbrel, Knot and Grey Plover. Skylarks and Meadow Pipits were in song all afternoon and we also picked up Pintail, Wigeon, Teal, some gorgeous Little Egrets and even a Grey Seal or two. Perhaps pride of place went to the raptors, and on what proved a fantastic day to see them, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk flew past regularly and there was one superb circular attack by a Peregrine Falcon. At such moments as a Peregrine flyby the thought 'North Ronaldsay can keep its ruddy Cretzschmar's Bunting' come to mind. Maybe. On each occasion we were treated to the shimmering spectacle of flocks of waders - surely one of Britain's finest birding sights?
If only the hide hadn't been mindlessly vandalised (although the site of forty people sitting in a row on a grass bank must have been amusing) and if only I can convince the rarity committees that the white goose in amongst the Greylags was a genuine vagrant. And if only the wind had been a tad more obliging. But, then again, if you dwell on 'if only' you can miss some rather wonderful showings right in front of you, like the tide pushing wetland birds right into perfect view