Looking at the Pacific

Hey there readers, I'm back after a couple of weeks of not posting, last Sunday was a little quiet so I could really talk about much, but this week is entirely different and I have a hell of a lot more to post about this week. The site we visited this week was Middleton Lakes, and many of you will now know why there is such a buzz around the place especially over the last two days. A very long distant British rarity arrived yesterday and caused a buzz among birders the bird in question is of course the PACIFIC GOLDEN PLOVER a bird I certainly haven't seen before. We decided to make a day of it and got straight down to the reserve. We arrived and as the RSPB car park was full parked in Middleton Hall car park. We then began the fast paced walk down to the main wetlands, and in this heat the walk was hard work but in the end worth it.

We followed the crowd and then in the distance a group of twenty or so birders all looking out onto the Jubilee Wetlands, we now had a viewing point. We arrived and after five or so minutes the bird showed itself and eventually came out and gave distant but good views. I can really understand why it was difficult to ID, the white on the neck is very prominent but unlike on the American Golden Plover you can see the white continuing down the body which to me was a good ID feature for the bird. What's more the white on the neck wasn't as prominent as the American species another good way on fully deciding which of the two species it was.

Trust me the Plover is in this picture. 

We had a good views of the bird for a good amount of time and left with it still showing,well I say left, we continued our journey around the reserve, and moved through the the hide on the far side of the reserve. On arrival I instantly got on to four or so Black Tailed Godwits sitting and showing well, and the best of it was that they were the first I have seen this year. We had a look in the hide book and discovered that Garganey had been seen today, essentially I was ready to see an obvious drake but it turned out the birds were female birds, this for me is new I have seen a drake Garganey some years ago but never a female, I had done a lot of reading on Garganey however hoping to see one this year and this paid off, initially one female Garganey showed well but then later on a second female turned up. 

So three year ticks in all, in addition to what's already been mentioned a single Little Egret showed well, two Snipe were view able from the hide, multiple Common Terns were all around the reserve and up to four Green Sandpipers were on the hall lake. I have to say today was one of the best days birding I have had all year so far, a big rarity and multiple year ticks I didn't expect to get this year, I was well chuffed as some may say. The plover was a big one for me and it was great to watch, I remember seeing my first Golden Plovers at Middleton before it was actually owned by the RSPB now years on I have seen my first Pacific Golden Plover there, I have to say Middleton has become one of my favorite reserves in recent months not just because of what it produces bird wise but it is a great reserve with so much to offer, a great walk is always had around there and there's always some good birds to look at. 

It may become more often that I do my posts with two week gaps, I like doing posts every week but you have to admit they were getting a bit similar to each over, usually a visit to Sandwell Valley and then Bartley if I leave it two weeks usually we have been to a few places so it spices it up a bit, but this all depends on how the birding goes, If we get a few good species I will blog about it but if things are quiet I may leave it another week or so. So what I mean is my postings won't be constantly on the same day and similar time every week I will just do regular weekly or fortnightly posts to keep you up to date with what's being going with my birding lately. There should be another post in the next week or two weeks so keep an eye out on Twitter for that one.

In addition to the birds mentioned there was a craft show on and we decided to kill some time and have a look round it on doing so we discovered a few captive birds of prey including a beautiful Great Grey Owl, Barn Owl, and Peregrine Falcon along with a few others here's a few shots I got of the birds,

Great Grey Owl

Peregrine Falcon

Barn Owl

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the week all- WMBB