The Early Bird

Went on Moors before work this morning. Was wandering about in the mist with Taz at 6.30am this morning. Stumbled across another year tick. While scanning the fields in the mist, I scanned past some pheasants. As I panned back, I noticed one of the pheasants seemed to have a very long bill. Was it the mist playing tricks on me? No! It turns out my Pheasants were in fact three Curlew. What a result, a first for me on the Moors.

I attempted pictures, but in low light, over distance in thick mist, they are unusable. I did attempt to get closer to the Curlews. I went the opposite side of a hedgerow and started walking toward a closer and better viewing point. As I was about half way there, I heard the "cur-li, cur-li" call high above me in the mist. They had taken flight. On reaching the better viewing point I scanned the fields just to check, unfortunately, they were gone. I did however pick a Hare up on its morning travels.

That put me in a good mood for the rest of the day, and work passed by without a problem. As I was leaving, I received a tweet that there were now four Common Scoter on the Pigs Lake. So on arriving home I changed into my birding gear, picked up Pete and along with Taz, we set off to find the Scoters. I have not been on this side of the Moors for a while, plenty of Sheep with their Lambs about, the long staying Mute/Whooper Hybrid and what we went for. Two pair of Common Scoter.

A nice bit of patch birding, and Taz even had a swim.

 

 

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