The Juvenile Birder

Second Cornish Delight! We set off at around 1:30am for a mega drive to Cornwall, picking up Dave along the way. We arrived in a layby along the A30 near Crowlas at around 8:00am in hopes of spotting a mega rare Booted Eagle, a bird which we dipped by a day last year in Buckinghamshire. As soon as we got out of the car, we quickly joined the crowd of birders and started waiting. After around two hours, someone called out saying they had the bird. After a quick scramble, Dave managed to get the Booted Eagle in his scope! It was snuggled up in the pines showing well, albeit distantly. Suddenly, it flew through the pines, giving us a quick glimpse of its underwing. Satisfied with our views, we then set off to try and find a rare diver, accompanied by Dave's friend, Leon.  We arrived at Perranuthnoe Beach at around 11:30am and immediately made our way along the beautiful coast path to Boat Cove. Along the way, we spotted two Ravens  flying overhead and a Whimbrel flying past. Once...

Northern Success! We arrived at Druridge Country Park at around 8:30am after getting a lift from Keith & Dave. As soon as we got out of the car, we were greeting by around 120 Pink-footed Geese flying overhead, making their iconic call. I immediately began scanning the lake from the car park hoping to find my target bird. Whilst scanning, I was pleasantly surprised to find a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers on the lake, something I didn't expect to see on an inland lake, but not too special as we were still fairly close to the coast. We then walked further round the lake towards a big crowd of birders, when a lone birder headed our way and told us that the bird had flown down to the other end of the lake. We then went back on ourselves, but once at the other end of the lake, we still couldn't find the bird, only a few Goldeneyes and two Little Grebes . While we were scanning through the birds, we found out that the bird had been seen again, near where we had parked. We quic...