Hot Legs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T95RxJsZ3O4&app=desktop

I bumped into Mark Peck in Tescos on Friday night, fortuitously, as during our birding banter in the dairy aisle he said there'd been a Lesser Yellowlegs at Welney during the day!!  We decided to do a family visit the following afternoon which went pretty well.  The American vagrant had not been seen which led to some pretty focused and intense searching.  I did find an unseasonal Greenshank amongst the Black'wits and I had quite a few interesting waders that all revealed themselves to be Ruff.  The girls all went back to the visitor centre for coffee and cake and I just kept looking.  Walking back from Lyle Hide I heard a Redwing like seep and looked up, I was surprised to see not a Redwing above me but a chunky and well marked Hawfinch flying over - a Fen mega.  I was a happy chappy but not perhaps as elated as I should have been as I was still to see a Lesser Yellowlegs in the Ely10, managing to enjoy an April bird on the Bluntisham side of the Washes at Berry Fen and miss it on it's short visits onto the Washes proper.  

I had just popped into the observatory on the way back to check the diving duck when all the waders took flight, a tremendous spectacle in itself, I heard the Greenshank calling and thought to myself "If I were a Yellowlegs I'd be drawn in by that call"  I looked around for the Greenshank which was over the main lagoon and it was joined by a smaller bird - check square white rump, check general Tringariness, check general well  protruding feet beyond the tail - Get In.  I was happy I'd found the Yellowlegs.  Back in the café my good cheer must have been evident as Erin made me a congratulations card.

I returned on Monday to see if I could secure some better views, there were birds everywhere and it was good to catch up with Mark Groom and his son Jasper enjoying the spectacle.  A Spotted Redshank was doing what I'd hoped the Yellowlegs would have done and was showing off picking at the water through the wildfowl.

The next day what was surely "our" Yellowlegs turned up at Cley and turned out to be an exceptionally confiding bird. At the end of a very quiet October half term week we took a trip to the coast and I enjoyed some great views of the Yellowlegs.  Just a little further down the track an equally confiding male Stonechat was just lovely.