I made a late afternoon trip over to Borough Marsh, Berks today after http://www.berksbirds.co.uk/ reported the sighting of 2 Curlew Sandpipers. Borough Marsh can be accessed by Shiplake Church and gives a good view out across the River Thames near the Shiplake College boat house.
I arrived at the wooden bridge overlooking the Thames and met up with Berks birder Brian Bennett who was searching for the Sandpipers, as always I was worried that I'd missed them and hurriedly put up my scope in the hope that they were still present. Brian pointed out that a large flock of Lapwing had just flushed from the main marsh in front of us and across to the adjacent field so I took his directions and scanned the field, as I looked along the farm machinery parked along the field a small wader passed through my line of vision and I remained glued to it with my binoculars before it dropped down next to a pool of water, the first thing I noticed was the clean white wings bars and a white rump before I lost sight of it. Brian and I then set about trying to locate them which wouldn't be easy at such a distance and with high vegetation surrounding the pools of water, we did mange to spot both adult and juvenile Curlew Sandpipers as they fed along the waters edge amongst a small flock of Lapwings but they were often lost to view as they continued along the pool.
A rare visitor to Berkshire with the last recorded sighting being at Burnthouse Lane, Theale, Berks on 17/09/05, the majority of sightings have been of single birds other than 5 that were seen on 08/09/01 at Slough sewage farm.The adult and Juvenile at Borough Marsh is an extremely good county sighting.
Added To My Year List.
170. Curlew Sandpiper
No comments:
Post a Comment