The Juvenile Birder

Birding Bonanza! We arrived at RSPB Frampton Marsh at around 8:00am, in hopes of spotting many rare birds. We were with Dave, who had given us a lift there. Our first target was the Lesser Yellowlegs, which could be seen from the car park. We walked towards a small crowd which was gathered at the side of the car park, and Dave let me look through his scope pointed at the Lesser Yellowlegs . I managed to get a record shot of it, before Dave then let me look through his scope again, this time aimed at a female Black-winged Stilt . I also saw my first Avocet  and Little Ringed Plover of the year while at the car park too.  We then made our way to where the Bonaparte's Gull had been reported early today. Along the way, we spotted two Mediterranean Gulls flyover , making their distinctive call. We arrived at the viewpoint overlooking the reedbed, and waited. Almost immediately, I noticed at least two Little Gulls  doing circuits around the reedbed. One of them was an adult nea...

 Rare Warblers and Rare Starlings! (record shot by birder next to us) We first went to RSPB Langford Lowfields (see post named Hobbies Hawking and Bitterns Booming and.., FLYING! for location pin) at 6:00pm in hopes of catching a glimpse of the rare Great Reed Warbler. We met someone called Andy on the way there and when we arrived at the Beach Hut, we could see a group of people by Phase 1 to the right of the hut. When we arrived, there were a frenzy of birders. The bird was singing loudly in the patch of reeds in front of us. At one point, we even heard it directly beneath us. We thought we got a glimpse of it as it flew towards an island and back though it could've easily been a common Eurasian Reed Warbler. We waited for about an hour until the someone finally spotted the bird. We rushed down and saw amazingly close views of it as it sung away in the reeds. Besides it were two Eurasian Reed Warblers trying to chase it away from its nest that was nearby. The bird was huge compar...

 Wader Fest! We arrived at 4:30pm in hopes of catching a glimpse of the rare Black-Winged Stilt seen from Nel's Hide a few minutes ago. When we arrived, we saw it. To the right of the hide was a Black-Winged Stilt feeding far out on the flooded fields. We viewed it as it foraged besides a Curlew. Just as we were about to leave, a Ruff flew in and joined the flock of Avocets on the bank of the main lake. We then went to Sandgrounder's Hide where we saw a Little Ringed Plover, a first for me this year, at the bank of the pool; viewable from the screen outside. It ran along near the grass before laying down, camouflaged within the dry mud. Just then, a bobbing wader caught our eye. On the grass near to the Kingfisher Post was a Common Sandpiper, another year tick, foraging and then flying off. A brilliant way to end the day!