Long-toed Stint at Swillington ings. ( Lifer )

Brian had been watching the news about the small bird that had dropped in at  Astley lake on the reserve at Swillington ings near Leeds.

The bird had been identified as a Least Sandpiper & I need that for a lifer, but the boys didn't, so the chance of going over 3 hours is not on but things change when the bird is re-identified as a Long-

toed Stint now all three of us need to tick this mega as there have only been two other sightings in 

England, so when news comes through that the Stint has been seen early morning around 8.30 we get a call to meet up at Brians & we are on the way by 9 o'clock.

It's a clear drive & we arrive at 12.15pm. The place is packed with cars parked all the way up both sides of the road & we head into the reserve to find the place packed but we get lucky when a car pulls out & we are in like a shot.

It's a long old walk before we meet up with hundreds of birders & get ourselves on the end of the line without too much trouble & the bird is on a small island in front of us to give all 3 of us another lifer.

We spend a fair while watching the bird looking to pick out what we had read up about the bird on the way up here.

Never went anywhere else so it's straight back in the car & head off for home feeling really good with ourselves as we have had a bad birding year and are only going for Life ticks because the year list is way down with the covid stuff.

This could be Jimmys 400th bird tick so a really good day, he is counting it as 399 because he is still waiting for the Black-eared Wheatear to be given the green light.

Me looking at the Stint

The Stint

Just a few of a mega crowd