Going the distance...

Not a reference to the miles travelled [although quite a lot were needed in fact] but to the challenging nature of working at the very limits of what my big lens can do. I'll begin with the bird that came closest...

May 18th: South Gare suaeda

A red-spotted bluethroat was reported so I set off north to Redcar. Only a small group of birders staring rather forlornly into the little suaeda glen out on the clinker field. I set off with bins and camera. Apparently the bird had been seen but was proving elusive. I crossed a few metaphorical fingers. After a while, a glimpse and then back into the vegetation. Photos began to flow as the bird would disappear at one point and reappear elsewhere , somewhere completely different without being seen to fly. It must have run along under cover! Here's the bird - a young male.  A red-backed shrike was reported at Noses Point near Seaham so I decided to try for it. Before I left I scoped the beach at South Gare and was rewarded with a nice group of sandwich terns - my first of the year.

Although I saw the shrike, I got no photos and had to settle for this mipit.

May 21st - a trip to Lancashire

To Lunt Meadows, a Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside Wildlife Trust reserve for the most distant of the three key birds. Now there's a mouthful: the L,M & N.M.W.T!! Formerly the Lancashire Wildlife Trust but local government reorganisation seems to have led to a rather complicated name! Still, a stilt sandpiper was attracting large numbers of birders and the car park was overflowing.

A view of the reserve And the bird itself - always very distant and often hidden. It accompanied a black-tailed godwit - they were inseparable, so if you lost track of the sandpiper as it moved among the reeds, finding the blackwit always helped you track the stilt. Here it is.

Also seen: a friendly magpie who let me get very close... ...goldfinches... ...and a four-spotted chaser dragonfly.

May 24th: Saltholme

I've dedicated a lot of time to great reed warblers this month: 3 trips to Wintersett to listen to a great reed warbler  and possibly glimpse it [but it was probably an ordinary reed warbler] but I'm now well used to the song and call of this species. Then one turned up at Saltholme. First trip it disappeared into the main reedbed fifteen minutes before I arrived. However they don't call me the persistent birder for nothing. When it showed well on the fringes of the Main Lake, I tried again. This would be the middle distance bird but given its size [even a great reed warbler isn't exactly huge] and the constantly moving reeds in quite a breeze, this was quite a challenge and I'm quite surprised to have a few nice, usable images. I stood in the long grass with three friendly birders and waited, and waited and... There, it's coming up...

The location The bird

203 UK 2019