A decent afternoon forecast albeit it being a bit windy, saw Tracey and myself heading south through the Lincolnshire Wolds to that gem of a reserve Frampton Marsh RSPB.
The main reason for travelling down was to see the reported adult Bonaparte's Gull which had taken up residence on Reedbed Lake, and was a new species for Tracey and only a second sighting for myself and also a new bird for my Lincolnshire list.
After a pretty decent drive considering it was a Saturday afternoon, we arrived at a packed car park.
We got our gear together and it was great to see the Lesser Yellowlegs still here and showing really well as always near to the car park, this bird was first found in autumn 2023 and has spent the winter here, new bird number one for Tracey.
On to Reedbed Lake and a small crowd were present and it wasn't long before we were enjoying some superb views of the star Yank as it fed on flies picked from the surface of the water in company of a handful of Black-headed Gulls for a useful comparison.
The size difference was apparent, being in between Black-headed and Little Gulls and the head colour was more reminiscent of Sabine's Gull, with a charcoal-bluey black shade to it, much more different to the chocolate brown of the Black-heads.
After taking some pleasing video of the star bird, i attempted to take some video in flight of the 1st summer Little Gull and lovely Black Tern which were also present over Reedbed, but it was a real challenge in the gusty south westerly wind.
After enjoying all the nice birds on Reedbed we made our way around to North Scrape and enjoyed some great views of the 1st summer female Black-winged Stilt which was watched feeding in the shallows, at times battling with the wind. It made me wonder if this is one of the returning chicks from the previous years breeding success here, when two pairs bred.
Now Tracey had seen 5 new birds, but more was to come.
We had heard that a Red-breasted Goose had been seen from the floodbank earlier in the day, but luckily as we wandered back towards the visitor centre it was feeding out on the wet grassland, talk about jammy!.
We watched as this smart goose fed with it's Dark-bellied Brent cousins and gave some cracking views, what a smart bird.
This lovely Goose species breeds in arctic Siberia and mostly winters around the Black sea coasts in Bulgaria, Romania and the Ukraine areas so is a long way from home.
Well what an amazing visit, seeing birds from all points of the compass and it really does go to show what an incredible reserve this is and what a real pleasure it is to visit.
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| Adult Bonaparte's Gull. |
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| Red-breasted Goose. |
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| Lesser Yellowlegs. |
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