A local twitch

Well I arrived home after helping in my local school with the yr 6 SATs (reading).
On the pager (dont take it to School in case it went off in the exam!) was White-winged Black Tern at Staines Rservoirs - my tetrad for the Bird Atlas and a local patch.
But the bird had been flushed by a Marsh Harrier ...which is quite an uncommon bird here anyway.

Eating my chicken and sweet corn sandwich I realised there was another message seen at 1.12 - so that was it....scope into car and off I went.

Friendly bunch of birders on site as I arrived and there it was -great year tick and patch tick!So from 1.50 to about 4 I spent time watching the bird - first on the South basin then on the north -flying over the causeway nearly over our heads! Stunning!

I rang my mate Bob;s house and heard he had gone to his allotmentas the bird had been flushed - tell im I am watching it now -I said to his wife...later Bob phoned and he was on his way. Eventually (despite the traffic) he arrived and soon picked up the bird...several times we had had close passes and now the bird perfomed brilliantly - so close had I had my camera I might have even got a pic!


At one time the wind was gusting a hooly and the birds were battling against it!

Nice to have a local twitch which was with friendly birders!

I'll see if I can find a good pic for those of you who dont know what a WWBT looks like.