Todd's Canada Goose, King's Moss, St Helens

Late yesterday afternoon a smart Todd's Canada goose was found by Neil Gordon at Crawford village just north of Rainford. These potentially vagrant Canada's are very exciting birds and a top prize on the Lancashire mosslands, so when I unexpectedly found myself with some free time this afternoon I decided to go for a look. 

As I was driving through King's Moss I saw some geese landing behind the Colliers Arms pub so I pulled over just in case. Fortunately the first group of geese I looked at contained the Todd's. Fortunate because I could see a walker coming along the track towards them and he was about to flush the birds. I managed a quick look through the scope, fired off about three photos and then they all went up and flew over the woodland towards Crawford. The weather quickly deteriorated, viewing became very difficult and despite hundreds of geese still being in the area, the Todd's wasn't seen again either at King's Moss, Crawford or Holiday Moss where they also sometimes go.

Ring-necked duck, Southfield reservoir, East Yorkshire

Southfield reservoir is about 10 minutes drive from my hotel in East Yorkshire and so is a very handy place to visit either before or after work, or even for a lunch break. I'd never even heard of the place before the end of June this year, but already I've got pretty impressive list for the site which includes Caspian tern, ruddy shelduck, black tern, scaup and as from today, ring-necked duck. Also today peregrine and several flocks of pink-footed geese over. 

The ring-necked duck is being reported as a female type, but in my opinion a more accurate description would be juvenile female. It's a great bird, my fourth ring-necked duck this year following drakes in Glasgow and at Kirkwall on Orkney, and a first winter female in Manchester.

White-tailed plover and conversations in the Townend hide

Who knew that white-tailed plovers had black toe nails? I was in the area this afternoon, so called in at Blacktoft for another look at the long-staying bird. It's in much better plumage now and showed well in perfect light from the Townend hide. Not a lot else of note, about the best was a single spotted redshank.

Back garden sparrowhawk kill

We get lots of sparrowhawk sightings in and around the garden and today this cracking male came in and took what I think is a collared dove. Photo taken on the dullest day of the year so far and through the window which was covered in rain drops. Quite amazing that they came out so clear.

Snow Goose, Plex Moss

This afternoon I finally caught up with the snow goose that has been on the south Lancs mosslands for a week. It was in a stubble field with pink-footed geese off Plex Moss lane. First seen at Banks Marsh last Friday, it then went missing for a day or two before being reported from Martin Mere as a lesser snow goose. 

Having seen photos from Banks Marsh and then from Birkdale a few days ago I had my doubts about it being a lesser, but now having seen it in the field it's clearly a greater snow goose. I've never seen a bill like that on a lesser snow goose.

So the final question is, is it tickable? ✔️Too late, it's on my list...

Great White Egret, Elton Reservoir

There's been a great white egret at Elton reservoir near Bury for about two weeks. For most of this morning it was quite distant but just before I left I sat down for 10 minutes to reply to an email and when I looked up the bird was right next to me!

Long-toed stint, St Aidens RSPB

For once my dodgy bladder came up trumps when it woke me up at 4am and for some reason I decided to check Birdguides. I was jolted fully awake when I saw that a least sandpiper which had been seen yesterday at St Aidens RSPB had been re-identified later in the evening from photos and was now considered to be a long-toed stint, only the 3rd ever in the UK and the first since 1982. I immediately jumped out of bed and got ready to go.

St Aidens is only a one hour drive for me so I could have waited on news this morning, but I knew that the bird would attract a large gathering and I reckoned that a lot of people would have missed the late re-identification and would only find out about it when they woke up, whilst others would wait on news. If I was quick I might get there before the really big crowds. I arrived at St Aidens in the half light at 7:15am to find that there were already a few hundred people on site scattered around the reserve in groups of up to 50 or more. For a while it seemed like the bird had gone, but on such a huge reserve as St Aidens there was always a good chance that it was just out of view somewhere.

Most people seemed content to choose a spot and wait but my plan was to keep moving and to get to as many places as possible, and this paid off because just as I was walking past a small group of birders on the central footpath somebody shouted out "Got it!". Apparently it had just flown in and was right in front of us, about 25m away. I couldn't believe my luck, I managed to get some incredible views of the bird and fired off a few phone scoped images. It stayed here for about 10 minutes allowing another close group of birders to mobilise and get to us quick, but then it flew 100m further out, though it was still a decent view for the majority of later arrivals. 

By now it felt like I was in the middle of a scrum so I gave up my prime spot and moved away to the edge of the crowd where I still had a good view of the bird but social distancing was a little easier. After another 15 minutes I decided to head off, I'd seen the bird as well as I was likely to and viewing could only get more difficult as more people arrived. It was time to give up my space on the car park to somebody else. I was home for 10:30am.

Apparently there is another potential record of long-toed stint from Weir Wood, East Sussex in 2011 but that bird has not been accepted by BBRC at the time of writing. I believe it's been recirculated and may well finally get accepted soon.

It's a cracking bird, almost like a miniature sharp-tailed sandpiper to my eyes, less so a wood sandpiper, but a lot different to a little stint, not just in plumage but also in jizz. It's more upright, appears longer legged and has a characteristic stance in part due to a short rear end which makes it look as though its legs are set further back than a little stint.

Todd's Canada goose, Banks marsh

I headed out to Banks marsh at Southport today for what I thought would be a nailed on greater snow goose which was found about an hour before I arrived. How could I miss it I thought, a large white goose in amongst a flock of pink-feet with a 10.1m tide approaching and all hiding places covered. As nailed on as it gets. Miss it I did though, in fact nobody saw it after about 9am, it obviously must have flown somewhere before I arrived, though nobody had seen it fly.

However a Todd's Canada goose was found whilst I was there and what a great bird it was, almost better than the snow goose. A really dark bird and clearly not the usual returning individual.