Beddington Turnstone


I doubt that Turnstones are annual at Beddington, I've certainly seen very few over the years, so when a juvenile turned up there yesterday I was more than keen to pay the farm a visit today - my journey was hurried up by a Curlew Sandpiper dropping in during this morning's rain.

To cut a long story short, when I arrived, the Turnstone (and a Dunlin) promptly flew off westwards and there was no sign of the Curlew Sandpiper - ho hum...

After a couple of big beefy showers, which sent me scurrying for shelter, subsequent checks away from the North Lake revealed 6 Green Sandpiper, 3 Common Sandpiper and, on the new 'restored grassland' flood, the Turnstone, that fed just feet away from me, totally unconcerned by my presence.


Also recorded were an eclipse male Red-crested Pochard (above), 2 Little Egrets, 6 Common Swift, a handful of Swallows, House and Sand Martins during the rain and plenty of warblers in with the tit flocks, mostly Blackcaps, Whitethroats and Chiffchaffs.

Comments

Simon Douglas Thompson said…
Nice photographs there!
12 August 2019 at 19:44
Yossarian said…
That cloud looks like it thought about dropping a little tornado!
12 August 2019 at 23:56
Steve Gale said…
Point and shoot bridge cameras do all the work. And yes, that cloud was a bit naughty not long after the picture was taken.
15 August 2019 at 21:44
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Kwowww"

On Tuesday evening, at 20.05hrs, I was taking out the rubbish, when I heard a call from south-west of the house. I froze, knowing what it was at once, but scarcely believing it. I had listened to this call on Xeno-Canto many times, getting ready for such a moment but not really considering it something that I would hear over the back garden. After 15 seconds the call came again from the blackness, now directly over head. Yes, there was no mistaking it! Another 20 seconds it called a third time - now further away to the north-east... "Kwowww" A lazy drawl, part bark, part yelp. A Bittern. Nocturnal flight-call. I went back inside and played the call on Xeno Canto just to make sure that I had remembered everything correctly. I had. Bloody hell, a Bittern over suburban Banstead! And only a week after an Arctic Skua had blessed me just a mile or so away. Sometimes the birding Gods do smile on you. To some birders these two species are just small fry, mere starters to the main cou
Read more

Mike Netherwood

Image
I first met Mike Netherwood at Beddington Sewage Farm in early 1975, me being an ultra-keen and ultra-green 16-year old birder, he some 20 years my senior. Mike, together with Ken Parsley, were the remnants of a once much larger ringing group which carried out the trapping and ringing of birds across the open expanse of the sewage farm. Whenever I bumped into them, which I often did, they would both tolerate my many questions about what they had seen and trapped and listen to me waxing lyrical about my own observations. Over the coming months they showed me how they caught the birds, allowed me to witness the ringing and measuring of them and, if I were very lucky, allow me to help them out by holding mist-net poles, carrying bird bags or writing down (scribing) the data that they were collecting into notebooks. By the summer of 1976 I had joined them, proudly in possession of my trainee ringer's permit. For the next three years (until I 'defected' to Dungeness) I spent man
Read more

To tell it like it is, or not...

Image
I am grateful to Gavin Haig (Not Quite Scilly) who drew my attention to an opinion piece, penned by Matt Phelps, which appeared in the November issue of 'Birdwatch' magazine, entitled 'Positive Approach', which I have now read. In it, he suggests that there is too much negativity being posted on social media regarding the state of our birding world, which is then acting as a deterrent towards a younger generation in adopting conservation and wildlife study. He also suggests that a lot of this negativity is being generated by older birders, and that these old timers keep banging on about the 'good old days' which isn't helpful in encouraging the youth to pick up a pair of binoculars and get out into the field. Does he have a point? Now, I am undeniably an older birder, and I am also guilty of having posted, blogged, written and spoken about the slump in bird and invertebrate numbers. I also like nothing better than to revisit my notebooks and share in the hi
Read more