Stilt Sandpiper

Colin and I went down to Dorset and Hampshire yesterday. Everyone went to Weymouth for the Ross's Gull, but we went elsewhere.
Many years ago we saw a Stilt Sandpiper at Minmere, back in 1997-an adult in breeding plumage. This required a long queue for the crowded hide, and rather brief views. While there have been a few since then, we never went for any of them, so one turning up last autumn was very tempting. However connecting with it was rather hit and miss at times, as it ranged over a large area. Rather unusually though, it stuck around the Poole Harbour area for a long time and then relocated to Christchurch Harbour and Stanpit Marsh where it seems to have settled for the winter.
Finding it proved to be a bit tricky when we got there-we were told it had flown down into the harbour, and  parking and access point was difficult, but we eventually got there. Joined by another birder, scanning the harbour from Fishermans Bank, we picked up lots of waders of course-Dunlin, Redshank, Ruff, Curlew, Oystercatchers and Ringed Plovers. A few Egrets were feeding-the Spoonbill unfortunately had disappeared, and there were lots of gulls milling around. I eventually found the Stilt Sandpiper at the northern end of the bank among some Black Tailed Godwits so we made our way up there and spent around an hour hoping it would get a bit closer as the tide dropped. It didn't and I had to use the digiscoping adaptor to get the images. The good light helped to keep the shutter speed up, but with the bird actively feeding and always on the move, getting sharp images was difficult, and the distance added to the problems.

The Ross's Gull was rather elusive all morning, and there was no news of the Thayer's Gull either so we ended up at Acres Down in the New Forest for an hour or so. The sunshine was lovely, the cold breeze less so and this presumably kept the small birds down. Apart from a few Chaffinch and Robins, there were a few Goldcrests in the evergreens, and a flyover Crossbill. A distant large chunky finch could have been a Hawfinch or a Crossbill but I never saw where it landed. The sunshine did bring out a couple of Buzzards and one Goshawk but it was hard work so we called it a day.

Horned Lark

Ive been wanting to go to Staines reservoir for a while now, because of the wintering Horned Lark-the American version of the Shorelark. It had put in a couple of short appearances late last year, and then turned up again a few weeks ago, and since then has been seen reliably on the causeway. Would have gone last week, but I didn't feel up to going out courtesy of the recurrent cold that has been going around since November.
We finally paid a visit this morning, arriving just after nine. Staines is as bleak and cold as its always been-had some very good birds here over the years but never really enjoyed the place, and as usual most of the birds were on the south basin looking into the Sun.
The lark was rather hard to find, feeding on the causeway edge, often obscured by the grass. In fact we walked past it heading for the small crowd not realising that they were heading towards us as they had seen the bird fly a long way east. We all doubled back, walked past the bird again until someone finally located it-close to where we initially met the crowd. Ron Cousins was among them.
The Horned Lark put on a pretty good show. Unfortunately, even the 800mm equivalent focal length of the 100-400 lens wasn't enough to get good images and I had to use the digiscoping adapter on the scope to get the best images. I found it rather tricky to follow the bird-it was feeding actively all the time and a lot of images weren't quite in focus, and the cold breeze was also causing a bit of camera shake. However a few were acceptable.

A Scaup had been seen earlier in the week, but not today, and we couldn't locate the summer plumaged Black Necked Grebe though Ron saw it  earlier.

With not a lot else to go for, we finally ended up at Cheshunt for what turned out to be just a long walk. We parked at Cheshunt with the intention of walking up to Slipe Lane, hopefully  picking up Goosander and so on, then maybe returning via Seventy Acres. Saw lots of the expected wildfowl with large numbers of Shoveller in particular but no sawbills of any kind. Very few small birds either-one Long Tailed Tit flock and a few Goldcrests were all we managed. No thrushes, finches or Buntings at all, so rather disappointing. Then the sleety hail arrived, so it was a good job we didnt do Seventy Acres.