Last years White Spotted Bluethroat at Spurn was the first since 1966, so it's amazing that not one but two have turned up today.  The first bird was in the sheep field at chalk bank and showing well so I really couldn't resist going down for it because I've never seen a White spot in Britain before, they are pretty rare and unpredictable in their appearance.

Can you imagine that, I've just driven a round trip of about 70 miles to look at a bird I can't tick I must be fuckin mad!  Oh no I'm not I'm a birder unlike all the twats on birdforum etc who wouldn't go for the Thayer's because they can't tick it, they really make my blood boil fuckin knob jockeys.

And another thing you also see is they're all asking can someone tell me which fields the gull has been seen in, or is there anywhere safe to park, or even worse do I need to bring wellies for this bird.....

No you fucking don't you don't actually need to go see it in the first fucking place cos it will mean absolutely fuck all to you!  If you need to worry about parking you should just drive straight past the birders at Elsham and continue on to Barton where you will find a lovely car park and hides where you may see Marsh Harrier, you almost certainy won't see Bittern or Bearded Tit because they are skulking/small and require a certain amount of skill to see, which you don't possess beause you're clearly not a true birder.  You will be able to buy a coffee though and you'll go home just as happy as you would if you'd seen the Thayer's Gull.  Anyway looks like it's gone, if you didn't go until you'd spent two days gathering all the necessary information I'm glad you fuckin missed it.

Thayer's the wrong side of the river!

Well fuck me two ticks in a week, I'm now on 464, but then again maybe I already was.  What am I going on about?  Thayer's Gull that's what.  I saw the bird at Poolsbrook a few years ago which many people thought was the real deal or near enough anyway.  I always thought it looked a bit funny round the head, hard to put into words but it's jizz was a bit wide of the mark for what I was expecting.  Here's a couple of pics of it see what you think.  They're a bit shit cos it was phonescoped but I think you can get the impression that the headshape is a bit funny.  And I suppose some might say it's too pale, I'm struggling to believe that pale Thayer's don't exist afterall if they were all the same they'd be practically the only Gull that didn't have massive individul variation

 

 
I'm maybe being a bit harsh on it and many think it was a good bird but you can't argue that the bird I saw today is a better candidate, it ticks all the boxes, for me at least.

Looks pretty good doesn't it?  Well it looks even better in Graham Catley's pics

http://pewit.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/thayers-gull-lincolnshire-first.html

It's surely the real deal, it's certainly better than any I've seen pics of in recent years, in fact the only thing I can see wrong with this bird is it's on the wrong side of the sodding river!

It's been a month since my last post, mainly because I got talked into fitting a new bathrooom in da house, which, as it turned out took nearly all month with one thing and another.  The other mostly being that the wall was falling in half!  I had to take out brickwork and stitch in recycled ones to bridge the gap.  

Yes that is daylight!!!

With the room now usable, a few things to finish off but at least I can have a shit, shower and shave now, so I've spent the last ten days or so catching up on work.  Highlight was somebody who appeared to have fallen/chucked themselves off a cliff.  The coastguard was heard to say 'the casualty has sustined major injuries, there appears to be no urgency', I guess that means they were brown bread.

Birds this month have been few and far between but I've seen my first migrants, a few Chiffs and 3 White Wags being the ones local.  I also played it totally cool with the Yellerthroat and waited until Sat 31st March before going to see it, turns out it hasn't been seen since so it may have fucked off, how spawny.  We got there and with only one other birder on site and reports some have had to try several times before connecting we were prepared for the worst, no worries Tim picked it up with in 5 minutes of getting there, back o the net!  We watched it on and off for about an hour and a half before clearing off for a celebratory Morrisons breakfast.
After this we went for a bit of Gos action at the New Fancy View watchpoint in the Forest of Dean.  We only had about an hour here but what an hour... Loads of Crossbill were flying around and two sat pretty close in the trees around the viewpoint, A Willow Warbler was singing in some saplings nearby which may have been a March tick for both of us and a couple of Bramblings did the odd flypast, then Tim picked up a pair of displaying Gos, they weren't close but views were prolonged as a huge female was in the air for at least ten minutes.  Shortly after I got onto a nice spotted juv bird as it did a flypast the viewpoint at a max of about 75m range, brief but very good views.  Tim [who seemed to be on fire today] then picked up a migrant Osprey which lingered for a bit then one of the locals called out a Hawfinch as it bombed past us.  We headed home via Newnham on the severn where the previous day there had been a 1st w Boney's and couple of Ring billed Gulls.  We couldn't find anything in the birds present and didn't see another birder which seemed strange.  It seemed even stranger when news cme on the Birdnet twitter feed  about 3 hours later that the Boney's was there when we were!  Why do people wait so long to put news out?  Im not gonna rant, mainly cos I can't be arsed with cunts like that but they really need to sort it out, 3 hours for fucks sake, half an hour, maybe, a bit longer even and we would have still turned back, but 3 hours, we were at fuckin home!!!!!

So Yellerthroat a new British bird for me, I don't really keep a British list and never really know what I'm on so when Tim asked I resolved to count it up, I had a pretty good year last year with the Turtle Dove, Short toed Tree,White throated Robin, Sandhill Crane and Greater Legs and Izzy Wheatear plus an armchair tick in the form of Sibe Stonechat, so all told I'm now on 463, it may just make me twitch a bit more cos when I think of all the birds I couldn't be arsed going for I'd surely be on 500 now. If only I'd put the effort in then I too could have had a bright yellow t-shirt and a certificate!!!

The only downside to seeing the 'throat is it'll take the gloss off it when I find my own on Shetland so I'm gonna have to kick out one of these fellas instead

Or even better one of these bad boys, now that really would cause the shit to hit the fan, can you imagine them all trying to get to Foula, it would be carnage.

 Pic courtesy of Micky Maher