April 3rd 2017
I’d been hammering Marston for the previous few days, hard work. One or two swallows, house martins and a pair of wheatears were about the best of it. So today I headed over to Freiston shore for a change. It was misty and cold to start and soon after my arrival I received a text from a couple of lads that visit Marston regularly, Neil and Tony Grainger. Yep, you guessed it, they’d got a good bird, an avocet, no less. This is a very good bird for Marston, very few previous records.
I wasn’t seeing a great deal at Freiston and considered driving back to Marston as I needed the avocet for the patchwork challenge yearlist. (There were some avocets in front of me, but they didn’t hold the same attraction as one on my local patch). The sun was coming out now and so I decided to hang about a bit, glad I did as an Iceland gull had dropped into the lagoon, a first winter bird. Well, that did the trick. I took some photos and was joined by Paul Sullivan. Also on the lagoon was the yellow-legged herring gull that I saw on my last visit here. It was paired up to a normal leg coloured bird.
Early afternoon, it was now a lovely day, I did actually hear that Bill Withers song playing on my radio as I hurtled towards Marston. The avocet was still there, fast asleep on the island. When it woke up after about an hour, both legs were seen to be colour-ringed and were easily read. A couple of house martins and swallows were over the works.
lincsbirders 