Devil Birder

August 1, wader month. I'm down at Beddington at 0800, grilling the Mitigation Scrape and Jim's Pit. The rewards: about ten Green and one or two Common Sands... right...

Off to look for Little Owls nearby, me and Kevin's chances weren't looking great but sure enough I spotted a bird. Beddington tick 122-yeaah!

We hung around Jim's Pit and the Irrigation Bridge for another couple of hours before Kev decided he had enough and I went into the main site with Johnny Allan, Nick Gardner and his keen son who has been dubbed 'Little Gripper' for reasons you can work out.

At the lake we had good views of a Common Sandpiper and the immature female Peregrine which Kev and I had watched tear apart a kill earlier but little else.

I hung on till about 1315 and waited, rather grumpy after nearly 6 hours of relatively little happening, for my dad to pick me up at 1400. I got a text from Phil Wallace who suggested we go for the Purple Heron and Wood Sandpipers that he reported had just come through on Birdguides. I didn't believe it at first but of course agreed, and went ahead with cancelling dad's lift and waiting for Phil. While I was waiting I checked Birdguides' Bird News Anywhere WAP site and sure enough, one juvenile Purple Heron and 3 Wood Sandpipers. Fair enough. Shortly afterwards, it came through on the pager.

Phil picked me up outside the farm and we were off. We arrived in half an hour or 45 minutes and hurried over to the peacock tower where a load of birders was crammed into the top floor. It wasn't showing at the moment but in the meantime I got onto the 3 Wood Sandpipers that were showing on the islands in front of the WWF hide, nice year tick, I love these birds! Soon people got excited as the main quarry raised its head. It took me a while to get onto it but yes, there it was, the Purple Heron another very unexpected British tick, and in my listing county- London! It continued to show its head and neck on and off until it flapped around in the ditch it was feeding in and fully emerged, everyone was well pleased! I snapped a few shots and Phil and I headed over to the WWF hide to get better views of the Wood Sands after it disappeared once more.

We got two or three brief but closer views of the Wood Sandpipers from the WWF hide, and in better light. Phil and I headed off to the cafe for a hot drink before returning to the WWF hide briefly but the Sandpipers weren't showing, home we went; and just in time; the rain began to pour.

A brilliant day in the end!