Tealed-up

Despite not getting out as much as last year in January I'm certainly seeing some birds. This morn must rate as one of the best winter morning outings on the patch (perhaps on any of my patches past and present).

WeBS counting so despite the very, very cold, damp morning with the occasional wintery shower I was out there with the hound. Careful scanning of The teal flock on The Shunan produced a Blue-winged Teal drake (with possible suspicions of a duck too). Despite skulking at the back the bird gave reasonable views and then came a wee bit closer for a while. A twitch was initiated and all of six birders appeared to hunt for it, most of whom were successful. Before the twitch got going though, having had good views I was off down to Bosquoy to count there too. A good omen was the Jack Snipe we flushed as the hound and I skulked along the holiday home fence to get some shelter. In amongst the 200 or so teal I caught a glimpse of a drake that looked interesting and so it quickly proved with Green-winged confirmed.

Not the greatest pix in the world but given the cold, the hail and more cold not too bad. Interestingly the Blue-winged Teal was first seen last year on 18th January on Bosquoy so it is very likely this is the same bird. This time it was associating with a duck quite a bit and although in life the range was too great one of the photos seems to indicate the possibility of a duck B-wT. I will investigate further tomorrow.

The Green-winged is a much hoped for find, something I'm very surprised I'd not found before, total delight was the reaction on the Bosquoy shore.

Even managed a new boat picture for my series. The lucky Hammers t-shirt will never be off my back now.