22 Years - 7.9.11

A very quiet day in the park with only a group of 5 RN Parakeets as anything of note. Later in the day as there was no food in the house instead of going shopping we decided to go fill the car up with fuel and get a McDonald's! I was just about to open the door when my phone started ringing. It was Joan Thompson and when she phones it's usually because she's heard of a good bird! It was a good bird and it was at Wilstone Reservoir, Tring. Trouble was I still had to go fill up the car and get dinner and it was 6.45pm and sunset was in 50 minutes! A run of good traffic meant I arrived about 7.10pm and parked up at cemetary corner and had around 50 House Martins overhead while I walked to the jetty where I found Joan, Steve Rodwell, Mike Campbell and a couple of others looking out onto the spit of mud from the jetty. There on the left hand side with c.10 Ringed Plovers (including my first ever tundrae race birds) was a Pectoral Sandpiper. This is the first record in Herts since 1989 (22 years). I actually saw that bird which was on Startops End Reservoir during a Y.O.C outing! I watched it until 7.50pm when it was almost dark and it had started to rain. But before I left I counted the Little Egrets that were roosting in trees on Drayton bank and counted 22 birds. My highest Herts count.