£3500 < £4000.
Close enough for my maths 
@pmac needs this:
I’ll probably get two of them and keep one as a spare… 
The cost of a porter to carry it for me will be negligible.
Anyway, back to actual birds…
Today we had a F8 South Easterly with constant showers. Awful conditions but tried anyway.
I noticed a “Yellow” Wag type in the pony field to the East of Aith burn and quickly realised it looked like a very good candidate for “Eastern” Yellow Wagtail (only 26 accepted records for Britain)
It was maybe 50m away so I thought I’d better get a few ‘record’ shots. This done, I continued to watch it for a couple of minutes (from the car, so as not to disturb it) when it flew East, calling in flight. I saw where it landed and thought I’d better double check the flight call on xeno-canto, it was perfect!
I parked the car and as I got out to look for it again it flew over my head, calling again. By now I was pretty much convinced so I followed it to an adjacent field where it had landed but before I got there it flew again, over my head (calling again) and out of sight.
I put the news on our WhatsApp groups and looked for it again for 45 minutes until Phil Woolen (birder staying here for the week) arrived. We decided to walk the burn to see if we could relocate it. We found it again but once more it flew and called. Phil had seen (and heard) the one on Anglesey (in 2019) and was also convinced this was the real deal.
Unfortunately we couldn’t see where it landed as conditions were terrible and it had clearly flown a good distance before we both lost it in the murk.
Once home I processed the photographs and checked all of the key features. Dark sub-moustachial stripe, white tips to the (retained juvenile) median and greater coverts,
very long hind claw,
black tail with white outers and dark ear coverts…
I concede that it’s unlikely to be ‘accepted’ by BBRC without a recording of the call but it’s on my self-found list!
Hopefully I can find it again tomorrow although with overnight gales and heavy rain not forecast to clear until lunchtime it may not be easy. At least it’s unlikely to leave in these weather conditions.
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Great account of an exciting find, best of luck tomorrow!
Very!
But also very difficult, frustrating and not 100% conclusive enough to persuade the Rarities Committee to accept it* without a much more detailed description (or a recording of the call!)
*I’m happy with the ID (which is all that matters - to me) but they need incontrovertible evidence.
An absolute win then.
Wonder if he gives anniversary cards as well 
Fucker probably did it pecking the paint off our (formerly) nice new windows 
I love corvids, but if a bird wants to make a nuisance of itself, corvids are second only to parrots in their ingenuity and destructiveness…
Now I’m near the sea I am getting more engaged with spotting - Lots to see locally
but starting from the balcony is this - Also from here spotted a Grey or Yellow Wagtail and what I think are ringed plovers - but have to go down to the Harbor to verify. Pondering swapping my 100-400 for a 200-600
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Not trying to teach my granny to suck eggs Andy. But, Grey W is resident throughout the year whereas the vast majority (if not all) of the breeding Yellow Ws will have departed by now. If it is a Yellow W it will be worth checking out, in case it is either a rare species/race or indeed a Citrine W - all of which will almost certainly be 1st winter birds with no (or very, very little) yellow on them.
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Cheers - I was expecting it to be a grey but it was a fly past and only seen a few times.
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You’re in Poole I believe?
It’s a great place for birding, latest sightings are regularly updated here:
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Out of my window today I saw a Buzzard in the vineyard (yes vineyard) - it then flew over to within a few feet of a (Song?)Thrush the Thrush was totally unfazed and after 30 seconds of them sitting together the Buzzard flew off.
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Inspired by some incredible birding pictures on here, Ziggy and I strode onto the local Common on Saturday with a Tamron 80-210mm Telephoto lens which @edd9000 chucked into the A7Rii bundle I purchased from him…
It was an unsually quiet afternoon bird-wise, but I did manage to snap a distant blurred silhouette of a gull of some kind…
…before capturing what will surely end up as one of the RSPB’s photos of 2024?!
Not long after, as the sky turned gold, we heard tremendous honking as a large skein of Canada Geese flew over, bound for some lingering floodwater they’ve been fraternising in for the last couple of weeks. I didn’t get a single one of the buggers in focus but I think it made for an appealing enough sight to share on here
Hoping to get some clearer pictures in future !
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@stu . These guys are hunting for a tin of green paint and to disappear in that London. Safety in numbers.
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An update on the putative Eastern Yellow Wagtail:
Turns out that I now have a (poor quality) sonogram of the putative EYWag flight call.
Phil attempted to record it when we saw it fly from distance but we couldn’t hear anything on playback in the field, due to the high wind noise. However, he sent it to Dr Jane Turner (BOURC) and she managed to remove most of that wind noise and produce a (faint) sonogram from it, which she described “there is a call visible on the video of it in flight and it’s not incompatible with EYW although it is the recording equivalent of a record shot”
So I will submit the record to BBRC (British Birds Rarities Committee) still a long shot but any recording will add weight to the submission.
Quite frankly it doesn’t matter an awful lot to me but with only 26 accepted and 6 pending records for Britain it would be a useful addition for the Shetland Records (and a “first” for Fetlar)
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