Blue Winged Teal at Ouse Wash

A quick trip up the M11 today with Suzanne and Tia where I just had to give the reported Eclipse Blue Winged Teal a go. This was not an easy call for me as a it would be just a year tick, it's in eclipse plumage and it's a long walk to the hide but in my search for a year tick a week I thought I'd give it a shot.

Stockdales Hide

It's a long walk.....1.6km to be precise.

So I made the 1.6km walk to the hide whilst Suzanne enjoyed a stroll with tons of butterfly action before returning to the picnic area to read her new book. I scanned for the Teal and found five Garganey and whilst one gave cause for a much closer look I couldn't get anything from it to call it Blue Winged Teal so I'll have to wait for this weeks tick. On the Wash were Spotted Redshank, Green and Wood Sandpiper, Greenshank, LRP, Ruff plus the usual Ducks and Geese. A Marsh Harrier and Kestrel flew over but neither caused the ducks to move which I'd hoped for thinking the BWT might reveal it's blue.
The day was dominated not by birds but the huge numbers of Butterflies along the path. The days list included..
WALL BROWN. MEADOW BROWN, BRIMSTONE, SMALL BLUE, COMMON BLUE, PEACOCK, PAINTED LADY, LARGE WHITE, SMALL WHITE, SMALL HEATH, GATEKEEPER
SMALL SKIPPER, RINGLET with the Wall being the star of the show.

Wall Butterfly

Wall Butterfly

House Sparrow dust bath

House Sparrow