Wintering Bluethroat

Last weekend we received the incredible news of a wintering Bluethroat at Willow Tree Fen near Spalding, South Lincs but with a bad weather forecast for the area we weren’t tempted, however the bird has remained present all week and been really confiding judging by all the photos so a second opportunity was not to be passed up. Travelled down with Mark and Pete, we arrived mid-morning and joined the fairly sizeable crowd already assembled and were a bit worried the bird might not perform as well in front of so many people, after around 10 mins the bird popped out from the reeds and soon allayed our fears by hopping along the path towards us picking at the mealworms put out for it as it passed by totally unfazed by all the bodies and sound of scores of camera shutters going off, super little bird and it’s something really special when you get one like this, after a second session with it it then went missing for 40 mins so happy with our lot we took our leave. Next up we undertook a long drive over to Donna Nook with Shore Lark, Lapland Bunting and Twite in mind unfortunately upon arrival we were informed they were a 2-3 mile slog along the beach, we decided against that however it wasn’t a totally wasted journey as we had superb close views of a male Hen Harrier hunting the fields along the approach road, a bit further along the coast road we added Brent Geese (dark bellied) to the year list at Horseshoe Point and then decided to end the day at Far Ings, that proved to be rather quiet on a now very gloomy late afternoon, no hoped for Bittern or Cetti’s Warblers the best bird being a male Marsh Harrier that flew across Ness Pool. 

a star performer

Teal pair at Far Ings

and fly by Marsh Harrier in very poor light