There haven't been any blogs for a while due to our relocating to Nelson's county. It's two weeks since we finally moved to Norfolk so today, since both these rare birds are still present, we travelled up to get both in one trip.
The Long-toed Stint is a first for us both. There was a chance that we could have seen this species in Mongolia but we did not, so, this became our first new bird in the UK for quite a long time.
A rather distant record shot
Moving on to Blacktoft (the last time we were here was to work on Bearded Tits with the aid of a Dulux paint chart - the study concluded that eye colour is not a reliable means of ageing) to see the White-tailed Plover. This was a first in Britain and the third we've ever seen. The journey to see it was much less arduous than the drive on deeply rutted tracks in Azerbaijan for two thirds of the party to to find our own as the remainder of the party lost their bottle. The second time we'd seen one was on our first day at Eilat, when an American competitor of the bird race loaded his scope into our boot, not realising that all assembled hire cars were white and he had not picked the correct vehicle. Our trip today had no amusing anecdote to accompany the viewing yet the view was still a good one.
White-tailed Plover
