19th August, RSPB Frampton Marsh
After a morning coffee and wander round the mediaeval centre of Lincoln, our first ever visit to this reserve. Wondered why the car park was so full on a Monday lunchtime, then realised there was a buff-breasted sandpiper twitch in full swing. We contrived to miss said sandpiper, stopping to scan from the road while everyone was watching it from the sea wall - a marsh harrier then caused mass panic and everything redistributed - it was lost from view by the time we got to the sea wall.
Decided to visit the rest of the reserve, as I'd promised my partner she'd get some good pics from the '360 degree' hide. More like 330 degrees, but I'm not complaining, some great views of godwits and ruff. We were almost godwitted out by the end of the day though!
Didn't manage to pick up the long-staying dowitcher either, although it had been seen the previous day, and only had a little grebe on the lake with breeding black-neckeds. So a strangely unfulfilling visit after promising much more than we expected on arrival, although if we'd been that desperate for a buff-breasted sandpiper we could've gone back to the sea wall - I noticed towards the end of the day all the scopes pointing in the same direction, presuming it had been spotted again...
Not totally unfulfilled though - my partner scored her first ever curlew sandpiper, albeit from a somewhat elusive bird at long range, while I also picked up another wader on the 'visitor centre' lake which really should've been on my year list by now.
299. Curlew Sandpiper
300. Common Sandpiper
I'm not celebrating my first ever 300 species world list quite yet though, as Scythebill says I'm still on 299, and I need to check the anomaly...