Earlier this year, a Little Bustard as present at Slimbridge for a few days, but I wasn't able to get there. It wasn't exactly showing well, apparently being a long way off in long grass and usually only the head sticking up from time to time was all most ever got. The fact that the Barnacle Geese were doing (and looking almost) the same wasn't a great help.
Earlier this week, a photo of a male Little Bustard appeared on social media and was soon pinned down to fields adjacent to the river Aire at Mickletown near Castleford. It had apparently been present for some time. Access arrangements were made and it showed quite well at times and plenty of photos soon emerged. Unfortunately work got in the way as it usually does and I was only free on Sunday. Not to worry, as despite an attack by a local Peregrine it was still showing very well on Saturday even if the weather wasn't great.
Colin and I arrived on Sunday morning to discover a large line of people along the permitted track and no bird. I was told that it had been seen first thing and then walked out of view in a low lying field north of us. The problem was twofold. At the top of the path, being higher, views were possible if it showed feeding along a grassy fence line, but the angle was bad and only a small area was viewable by a distant gate. Almost zero from the only space I could get. Further down in the crowd, more fence was visible but vegetation obscured any views and only the head and neck was likely to be seen.
To make matters worse, there were lots of tall people, many wearing hats and 90% of the time I couldn't even see anything at all. It took a long time and a lot of manoeuvring to get a position where I was able to see anything. Added to that new people were constantly arriving and some though nothing of pushing through and standing in front of us, so there were lots of words exchanged, and tensions at times got high.
Sometime around 1030 some of my mates departed, having observed from much further down the path, they had head and beak views but not much else. Around 11, Chinese whispers seemed to suggest that someone had seen it somewhere but directions were vague and contradictory. There seemed to be a language problem as well, as what those around me seemed to think we should be looking two posts left of a gate actually turned out to be behind two poppies! Needless to say by the time we found the poppies it had vanished from view. A bit later, a further sighting near a small willow bush caused confusion as directions involved several stumps. These turned out to be fence posts. I actually had my scope pointing in the right spot anyway, but never saw anything, although several birders thought they could see something moving in the area. The same thing happened a while later in the direction of a big patch of teasels. Unfortunately I had a big hat blocking that part and I ended up on a smaller patch, so by the time I realised this, shifted the scope slightly it had vanished. I think that all of these sightings, if genuine involved a very obscured bird feeding along the fence behind a lot of tall thick grass and may not necessarily have been the Bustard.
By midday I was getting a bit tired, hungry and very thirsty. Backache and leg cramps were kicking in as well, and I was starting to feel like giving up and trying again some other time when hopefully it would be a lot more obliging. However around 1230 someone behind yelled that it was in front of the gate and I swung the scope round and finally got to see the thing. It was only in view for 10, maybe 20 seconds but it was good enough and a big relief. Unfortunately only a small percentage of the assembled crowd was able to get on it, and many couldn't even see the gate anyway.
Apparently there were a few sightings later in the day but I know many left disappointed throughout the day. To make matters worse, despite expectations that it would stick around there was no sign on Monday and a search of the fields by locals and the farmer failed to locate it. Hopefully its still around somewhere.
We spent an hour or so in the early afternoon at RSPB Fairburn Ings just to unwind a bit . This is one place where Willow Tits are still reliably seen, and a place we hadn't been to before. It turned out to be a lot bigger than expected and there were many miles of track around the many pools left over from coal mining. We initially went round a small loop around a pond dipping area, taking in several feeding stations. While we had several big tit flocks, a Treecreeper and some Tree Sparrows we near saw or heard Willow Tits. Brown Hawkers and Common Darters were frequent, along with a few Emperors. A walk east along what was called a river path to one of the larger lakes didn't produce a great deal. More tits, a few Willow Warblers and some wildfowl on the lake. I did wonder if the path, which followed a ridge along what I assumed to be a spoil heap might have some interesting plants-orchids were mentioned on the guide map, though I didn't find anything out of the ordinary.
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