For over a week, there had been reports of a Red-necked Phalarope at Grindon Lough, Northumberland. This Sunday I took advantage of a window of time as we had cancelled our planned trip to the Farnes, due to bad weather and Adriana had to go into work for a few hours. As I was preparing a small packed lunch, I checked my twitter and the latest message in my ‘list’ mentioned it was showing well. Inspired with new enthusiasm, I was out the door, quicker than normal, and off on my fourth twitch of the month (which is unusual for me as I don’t twitch much).
On arrival at Grindon, the weather was wet and windy and it was difficult to keep my scope straight. An hour of searching initially revealed just Redshank and some Dunlin, however as the weather cleared and the sun came out, other birders started to arrive. Not long after, the Red-necked Phalarope appeared, sitting on the water, about five minutes from the right hand side. The views were distant, and not as good as those I was lucky to secure with the Backworth bird back in 2012, but it was great to see.
A beautiful bird with lots of personality and a bonus year tick.
Paul Buskin