The Juvenile Birder

Fleeting Glimpses of Gold! We arrived at RSPB Bempton Cliffs in hopes of seeing an extremely rare Pale-legged Leaf Warbler. We were accompanied by Dave, who we had given a lift to. On our drive to Bempton we spotted a Barn Owl perched by the side of the road. It soon got up and flew alongside us in the car, going almost the exact same speed as us and giving incredible views  Upon arrival at Bempton, we were greeted by a large crowd of birders, who all seemed to be looking at something in the car park. We parked in a convenient space opposite them and jumped out to see what they were looking at. Since I was at the back of the crowd, it was impossible for me to see over the birders. Dave then took us round to a gap in the hedge, where the bird had been showing well yesterday. We sat on the floor waiting for it to appear in the undergrowth. Suddenly, the Pale-legged Leaf Warbler  flitted right in front of us, calling. Although it was the bird, I didn't ideally want to tick the b...

Scarcities in Scotland We arrived at Slamannan at around 10:00am in hopes of seeing the wintering flock of Taiga Bean Geese. As soon as we arrived, while driving, we noticed a flock of around 40 Taiga Bean Geese  in a field north of Shortrig Farm. They were quite distant, so I patiently waited for them to come out into view! After a bit of time I managed to get some digiscoped images of them and with loads of light left, set off to Broadwood Loch. We arrived at Broadwood Loch at around 11:00am in hopes of seeing my first drake Smew. Immediately, we noticed a lot of common waterfowl, like Canada Geese , Mute Swan and Coot , but there were also lots of Tufted Duck , Goldeneye  & Goosander  as well as some distant Wigeon . After a bit of scanning, we spotted the drake Smew  far out. We got some images of it and then left, on a high, to Newshot Island in hopes of seeing another scarce bird. We arrived at Newshot NR at around 12:00pm in hopes of seeing an American Wig...

Day 2: You Can Never Have Too Much of a Good Thing! We set off from our Inn at 6:30am and went over to Blagdon Lake for a Ring-necked Duck. We found the lake, which was huge, but at the two different locations that we stopped we were unable to find the duck. We could not get close to the lake; it was always overlooking private land and we were unable to therefore walk the circumference of the lake. We also tried to get to the location of the Bristol Dartford Warbler at Trooper's Hill but there was a lot of road works taking place in Bristol and the old sat nav we have could not navigate us to the right location. We ended then going to WWT Slimbridge. We arrived at 9:30am and rushed straight to the Rushy Hide in hopes of seeing the Bewick's Swans. We entered the hide and the three Bewick's Swan were sat right up front, on the mud, showing very well. I had only seen Whooper Swans at WWT Martin Mere, a site local to me, and had been scanning the flocks at Martin Mere for ages...