The Juvenile Birder

Twitching Top Ticks!  Part I Image from David Woodhouse (same bird, but taken on different date) We were offered a trip to see Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, at an undisclosed site, by a birder called Dave (who we had previously met at Easington & Potteric Carr YWT). We set off at 4:30am and arrived at his house at 7:00am and he took us to the bird location at 7:45am. We were ecstatic when we heard the distinctive drumming and travelled towards the noise. After looking in the wrong spot for a bit, we managed to find the correct area and heard the bird close by. We also met a local birder named Rob, who was also looking for these Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. He said it had been drumming for a bit. We walked towards the sound until it was right in front of us. There was a tree that looked like a stake and had multiple holes in it, so I checked it and I spotted just the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker 's head pecking rapidly at the tee. I alerted Dave & Rob and then moved to get a better...

 A  Quick Morning Lifer! We arrived at Conder Green at 7:20am and parked in a layby on the B5290 that overlooked Conder Pool on one side and a river/creek on the other. Recently, there had been a reported Temminck's Stint present. They are small waders, around half the size of a Dunlin. This bird was an adult and was moving quite a bit. We had come on the 1st August and the 2nd August in the evening but dipped it twice. With it being seen every morning and barely in the evening, we came earlier. We went to the screen and met someone who said they had seen in on the island full of lapwing but it went down a channel. We waited and soon enough the man said it was visible. I looked through with my scope and saw it as it foraged along the rocks. It didn't seem small when looking through a scope but with a naked eye it was tiny, I could barely see it with my binoculars. It then flew to the neighbouring island and foraged along the tip before going out of view. Then, someone who we h...

 Arctic Gulls and Shanks! We arrived at 7:30pm at RSPB Leighton Moss coastal hides (location pinned to post named 'Goosanders and Waders') in hopes of seeing a Sabine's Gull, which unfortunately had a missing right foot and presumably an injured left foot, that was reported earlier. We did go to the saltmarsh in the morning but sadly dipped it. When we arrived at Allen Hide (where the bird was last seen), we asked someone named Phil Rhodes who mentioned to us that he had been here for 20 minutes and didn't see it at all. He then told us about how the bird is being very random. It has sometimes been spotted on Causeway Pool, then it usually hangs out on Allen Pool, and then somewhere it goes somewhere within Morcambe Bay but we are yet to know where that is. After a while, Phil went to go check the Eric Morcambe Hide and soon after, the head of RSPB Leighton Moss, Jarrod, came in. After a while, he pointed out two Greenshanks as they flew in and landed in the only bit of...