Holiday Day 3, Twitching Mega and Twitching Rare, Two Lifer's

Adam and I set of early on 20th October and headed for Hayling Island, we eventually arrived at around 8.30 after some of the worse driving conditions I have ever witnessed. Around the M25 lighting struck beside the road, the rain was so hard we were forced to do 30mph (which was still probably to fast but that was the flow).

The A3 was even worse heavier rain and I was battling to keep the car in a straight line. But like I said we arrived at 8.30am and I will now skip to the end of the day because upon arriving home I looked at the BBC news channel and found this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24601190. Unbelievable we missed this by around 30mins but this explains the terrible conditions on the A3.

Back to the birds, we were hoping to see the Semipalmated Plover which in all sounded easy, wait for the tide, scan the waders and jobs a good'n.

 

After 3 hours waiting the tide was in.

 

The twitchers were assembled.

 But the birds had other ideas, I am sure that every bird had been scanned that was in the plover flock, but more were joining them until a Carrion Crow flew over and the birds were spooked and flew off.

We followed others to check 'the beach' by the car park - having no idea where this was we followed others.

Had time to photograph this calm scene on what was actually a rough day.

 

At the beach it was clear that the bird was there, an excited buzz was in the air, it wasn't long until we were put onto the bird. It was obviously different once you'd seen it.

 

 

 



 

Before we left a high number of Twitchers had assembled.

 

We left an head for Cranbrook in Kent, we wanted to see the Parrot Crossbill(s). Upon arrival it was spitting with rain, I was clever enough to take my umbrella. This turned out to be a great idea as it rained like the picture below for 45mins solid.

Eventually the rain cleared, and within seconds the Crossbill flock was back.

It was brief and distant but sure enough a Male Parrot Crossbill could be seen with its Bullish Head and huge beak it was great to compare against the Commons.

The Sun had then gone down so we headed home.