a rail a,tern and a gull

6/08/09
upton warren
heading for the west hide there was a large tt flock along the path,spent about 5 mins scanning the flock for anthing,only things in there was 1 willow warbler and 3 chiffchaff(yes you can tell them apart),went straight into the west hide and called a water rail.it disapeared but i wasent sure as i didnt get my bins on the bird (in reeds).2 black tern were here(both juv) and shown at the top end of the moors:

i scanned the assembled gulls for larus sabini,but they only consistesd of black heads :(

then turned my attention back too the feeder area and a water rail was there standing in the cut reeds and just spent 30 mins walking up and down the newly cut reeds,at one point directly in front of the hide on the waters edge giving a great oprotunity to film it:

a kingfisher landed on the stick in front of the hide briefly but flew off before i could get my scope,

it is good to see the bird tables/feeders coming back into life with 7 bullfinch(3 juv),3 reed bunting and numrous greenfinch with a lone young goldfinch,a woman in the hide said 2 sabine's gulls had been found at westwood pool and i must say i was tempted(but its permit holders only),but it was soon after that i recieved news of the bird at the flashes so after telling the 2 other people in the hide(one traveled quite far to see it,can't remember where though),they both left for the flashes but we stayed in the hide for a bit,nothing new came in so after 20 mins we headed down to the flashes.highlights here are:

1 shovler(not good for seeing them from the west hide)

1 water rail

3 common tern

2 BLACK TERN

1 kingfisher

1 cetti's warbler

1 willow warbler

3 chiffchaff

7 bullfinch

3 reed bunting,

again the hide was packed and i took to sitting at the back of the hide.i was pointed onto the bird on entering the hide,which for the first time was out the water(note the end of the video goes dark because someones head gets in the way:

(sorry no video here,uploading failed)

while in the hide i heard someone mention something about sheepwash but didnt hear anything else,the sabine's flew off showing off it's upperwing pattern,despite thinking it would land again,ti didnt it just kept going and going untill it was a distant speck,this gave me a chance to look for some other stuff,a juv LRP was here and 2 common tern landed on the posts,i then looked south and saw 2 terns commin in from the south,my dad asked what i had and i sai i had the 2 black tern from the moors,a few other birders looked at them but the rest of the hide was intently scanning the gull flock,the sabine's gull reappeared and landed with the gull flock at the back,it shown for the rest of the night.highlights here were:

1 LRP

10c green sand

30c curlew

1000c BHG's

5 l b b gull

1 SABINE'S GULL

2 common tern

2 BLACK TERN

4 stock dove

1 cetti's warbler(hen pool,heard from path)

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