A Blue Sunday

Funny how sometimes birds can really get by the throat and give you a shake to get you out of the dullness of a Sunday! Lunchtime came and went with us not having even stepped outside, apart from to say morning to the rabbit. Then, after checking my phone for the umpteenth time, the news of a Bluethroat at Doxey Marshes got me off the sofa and preparing to run.

And I'm glad we did! Doxey is an hour from home, and by the time we got there, there was already a crowd of around 50ish other birders hanging around a very unlikely looking corner of vegetation. After half an hour of nothing but raised bins and a bit of pointing, some of the birders definitely started to all be looking in the same direction. Then murmurs of directions to Juncus and sedges and "...on the muddy bit between the reeds...". This didn't mean anything to me and Jordan as we were too low down and looking across the vegetation. We needed to get higher up the bank, so we moved round to a very helpful lady and companions who had been there a while and noticed its foraging pattern. Indeed, in no time we were both looking at the blue throat of the Bluethroat. Now the views weren't stonking (as Jordan kept telling me on the return to the car!) but that was his first and my second, and actually my first actual blue-throated Bluethroat (my first one was at Spurn in September 1996, and was equally brief and elusive and not blue at all). So my thanks go to the massed birders that helped us out, and to the very lucky observer who spotted this Midlands Beauty in the first place.

Hopefully this video shows how difficult the views were!

Other birds of interest were Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Reed and Sedge Warbler, and these Canadas with babies, awww!

And this not-quite-so-adorable-but-I-think-this-is-also-a-first-for-me Alderfly!

So Bluethroat makes my 143rd bird for 2012;

The moth trap is on and doing well so far with Campion and Pale Mottled Willow potted for the yearlist, hopefully many more to report back tomorrow...........