Not 1 but 2 First’s For Britain! - 6.5.23

 

Grey-headed Lapwing

Just before Christmas last year the first Stejneger’s Scoter for Britain was found lingering off Lothian allowing some twitchers to get it on their lists but it soon disappeared leaving many disappointed. Just before the patch challenge took place it was re found off of Lower Largo in Fife in with an enormous number of other scoters presumably pushed towards land by the easterly winds

I did mention to my wife about going for it at the weekend but she wasn’t too pleased with me going birding again after being out most of last weekend! As it was on arrival at Wilstone on the bank holiday Monday I was alerted to yet another first for Britain having been found in Northumberland.

Stejneger’s Scoter

Again I broached the subject and I think the thought of having me at home being miserable because I couldn’t go for them was enough for her to give me permission! So I packed up the car and at about 11pm Friday night I headed north. A Barn Owl flew over the car near Retford,Notts and I finally arrived at High Newton by-the-sea just before 6am and as I was getting my gear together Mark Leitch drove into the car park. He’d arrived just too late the night before to see it so had come back this morning for another go. Unfortunately overnight thick fog had enveloped the area and so we had to wait about a while for it to clear enough before the magic words rang out. “I’ve got it” and sure enough through the gloom we all managed to get onto our first ever GREY-HEADED LAPWING. Slowly the fog cleared enough to get good views but as you can see from my photos it was still a bit gloomy. This species had turned up in Europe back in 2019 and as it had been spreading westwards from it Far Eastern range it had been touted as a possible addition to our lists. After 20 minutes or so of watching it I headed back to the car for the next leg of my journey.

The next stop was Lower Largo about 2.5 hours north. Again the traffic was kind and I arrived in good time and found a car park. Another birder from the Lapwing had arrived at the same time so we walked down to the Crusoe Hotel to join a dozen or so birders already on site. One of them was Dan Pointon who kindly let us look through his scope at it and within 10 seconds I was laying my eyes on my second first for Britain by 9.13am! A drake STEJNEGER’S SCOTER!

I set my scope up and found it myself with its ‘horn’ protruding from its pinky/yellow bill but it could quite easily vanish and take a while to re find it again. It was part of a scoter spectacular which included over 600 Velvet Scoters (I’d only seen 94 in my 39 years of birding!) many Common Scoters and at the far end of the beach I had only my second ever White-winged Scoter (there has been up to 3-4 of these present!) which was near to a pair of Surf Scoters. I’d only previously seen 3 female/juvenile birds before so it was nice to finally see a drake. After my fill of scoters I scanned the bay and noted year ticks of Kittiwake, Shag, Sandwich and Arctic Terns, Guillemot, Razorbill and Eider. And Matt Eade kindly showed me 2 summer plumaged Long-tailed Ducks through his scope which from memory were my first summer birds. 

Happy with my mornings birding I got in the car and headed for home. I arrived back with 887 miles on the clock and 2 more birds on the life list and a further 14 on the year list.

Thank you to my lovely understanding wife for letting me go though I’m sure she’ll get her own back soon!