Conclusion on mystery wader

Hi readers, if you read my previous post (if not please do) on my holiday to Norfolk then you may have read that I had a issue with identifying a wader I spotted in Caister Beach on the last day of our holiday. Well with a little help from a Flikr user and then Internet/book research to check the answer I have found the bird was a Sanderling. 

I have seen this species before a couple of years ago but I had never seen ne in that plumage, Sanderling was one of the birds on the top of my list as to what it could be, the main reason was the pale grey/white colour of its wing feathers. But despite that I still wasn't to sure but at least now with the help of others I can begin to gain more experience with ID difficult eclipse plumages at this time of the year.

The fact is in terms of my life time I have still seen very little in terms of species, I hoped to at least get up to 200 species by the end of the year but there just hasn't been enough opportunity, more specifically in terms of transport. It's not the fact that the birds haven't been around I just haven't been able to get to them.

And to me personally I really want to gain as much birding ID experience as I can in my birding early years, the more I learn now the better off I will be when I see something like the Sanderling n the future.  Was glancing over my life list the other day and happened to notice that a lot of the birds on it are UK rarities some being national megas such as the Cream Coloured Courser last year and the American Buff bellied Pipit. But in actual fact there are still quite a few regular migrant bird such as Pied Flycatcher that I still haven't seen.

I really enjoy twitching and the excitement of seeing a rarity, it has already offered some of my best birding experiences but I while having fun seeing rarities I still need to focus on the commoner birds that I haven't seen they are not to be forgotten.

The bird on the top of my list is Grasshopper Warbler I have literally stood infront of one singing but it was deep in shrubbery, this year from scanning the Internet sightings there hasn't been as many around in their usual nesti g places such as Clayhanger at all which was disappointing for me. Lets hope one pops up soon or at least in next years migration by now.

Please read my previous post on my holiday to Norfolk if you haven't already, I had a great time and got a few good lifers out of it. There is likely to be a post on Friday if not I'm not sure when due to arrangements I have in Sunday.

Thanks for reading- WMBB