Well it is not every day that a potential first for Britain appears on one's patch. Better still, it is, of course, a patch tick. And even better - a patch year list challenge year tick. As with Seppy's Turtle Dove, this one took some proper birders to find (Chris, Hywel and Paul) and, given that next to nothing is published on identifying 1st-summer male White-winged Scoters, it was a helluva find indeed. Here are some impressionist interpretations of what it looks like:
Such is the degree to which my neglect of Blackdog has been over recent weeks that Surf Scoter was new for the year too. However, it was not all birds found by others. On Saturday 2 Collared Doves on the edge of the village was a 100% self-found building block patch year tick - no-one can take that find away from me! Manxie on a brief visit a few days ago and the year list is now on 79.25% (98 species).
Statto
bloody 'ell sheila! tuen yer back for a minute and all hell breaks loose! Nice wan tho - a few twitchers will be invading your patch for the next few days eh?
ReplyDeleteAmazing bird and find.
ReplyDeleteI see that Lee Evans is talking about a record somewhere in Highland that was never submitted back in '94. It's funny that, cos my mum says she saw an adult male back in 1993 when she was on her way to Sainsbury's. It had all the features but she never submitted it cos she doesn't agree with the elitest male-dominated process for record accreditation.
Tough shit I say - either you're in or you're out.