Quite a visi-mig morning. Redwing west before I'd got the Co-Op, Redwing west as I came out of the Co-Op! Dozens of them, which had become hundreds by the time I met up with quite a crowd at the south-side of Long Wood.
Bob had made contact with the Ring Ouzel already, and was a happy chappy (a new bird for him for the area, long sought after and finally got. Tick #125). I had picked it up in a lone hawthorn between me and Marco, who had come specially for this bird, but then she flew around and disappeared for about an hour or so.
Dan, Tony and Barry still hadn't caught up with the bird, now on its 5th day, so we waited counting finches and other thrushes. Next Sally and Helen turned up expecting ouzel action too, and counting Redwing was not going to cut it. We circled round long wood, where we suspected it might be hold up and that accomplished we stood around a bit more. Nothing.
To do something different from standing around doing nothing, I wandered off to the visi-mig point and promptly flushed it from the hawthorn. Luckily everybody saw it give me a wide berth and fly south further into the brooms and the last hawthorn there. We approached as one, hoping to get there before a guy in a (very) high visibility jacket came trundling the other way. The ouzel obviously didn't like the look of his jacket anymore than we did and flew high east over centre copse and round back towards long wood.
Cracking views. Everybody happy. Job done.
Finally got some shots of the bird I have been chasing for the best part of the week. Shouldn't have bothered. The good news is I've kept some in reserve for the monthly round up and will have to use them if she fails to become more obliging!
Then I went to the park and looked at ducks.
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