Grey Phalarope at KGV reservoir.

An early morning call from Brian sees the three of us heading off to the King George V reservoir in Chingford to try to get another year tick.

A Grey Phalarope had just been reported as being seen here, so we had to come as it is only 20 minutes from home.

It has been reported on the east side of the north basin so a bit of a walk. When we reach the causeway we scope the basin and find the Phalarope at the south end of the north basin,  which saves us a long walk to the far end.

As we watch the bird it comes closer & closer till it is just below us for really great views.

Such a tiny bird that is fascinating to watch as it bobs about in the waves. 

Really nice to catch up with Harry and a few locals.

The  Grey Phalarope

Waxwings before we head home.

 After we had ticked the Purple Sandpipers at Ness Point Lowestoft, we heard that 40 Waxwings had been seen only two miles away from us, so, of course, we had to go to find them.  As we arrive a large flock of birds passes overhead and as they all land on a couple of trees we have the Waxwings in sight. Brian is out of the car with his camera as the birds feed and drop down onto a wall for a drink. We spend a fair amount of time watching and counting 47 but think there might be more in another tree. 

So a good end to the day after dipping the Pallid Swift at the start.

A few of the 47 birds seen

Canvasback (lifer ) plus a Swift dip.

The boys and I take a trip to Abberton Reservoir in Essex, hoping to see a lifer for us in the Canvasback that had been reported.

It is only an hour's drive for us and we arrive nice and early. first stop Layer-Breton causeway but no sign of the bird, so a quick look in at Wigborough Bay hide but nothing doing with it being very quiet bird-wise. So the next stop is the hide in the farm yard.

Two fellows are already in there and one of them finds the Canvasback and gets us onto it as it swims along with a large flock of Pochard it is easy to pick out among the flock so another lifer for us all. It was nice to see a lot of birders that we know that came to see the bird as the morning went on.

The Canvasback

A couple of days later Brian wanted to head to Walasea Island also in Essex only a short trip for us, Short-eared Owls had been seen and Brian wanted to get some photos, and Jimmy and I needed to tick one for the year. 

It doesn't take long before we see our first shortie and in the two hours spent here, we spot at least 8 Short-eared Owls a Ringtail Hen Harrier a few Marsh Harriers to make it a great trip.

One of the Short-eared Owls

One of the 

Another

And again 

We have been trying to get all three of us free to go for the Pallid Swift in Winterton Village.

The bird has been around for a few days now but as I say we have not been able to go until now. 

We arrive at the church in the village at seven o'clock and spend over three hours looking 

for the Swift but it turns out that we have left it too late as the bird seems to have flown off.

We do get good views of a Woodcock as it flies up and over our heads.

So we give up and head off to Filby Broad as a Fudge duck had been seen and we need it for a year tick and it is very close by.

It was not easy to find but after an hour or so we got on it and found out there were two Fudge ducks there we also spotted a Scaup for good measure.

The ducks were too far away for any photos but we got good scope views.

To finish the trip off we head to Ness Point in Lowestoft to look for another year tick.

The target bird is the Purple Sandpiper, we find the road to the beach blocked so have to park further away from where we wanted to be to look for the target.

We scan the rocks along the beach and are hopeful as the tide is coming in fast and they like to be on the rocks as the water splashes over them. 

We walk up the beach where we find six Purple Sandpipers for our year tick.

One of the six seen

Another purple Sandpiper seen