Alpine Accentor at Slaughden in Suffolk

News broke yesterday of an Alpine Accentor being found by Mark C on or around the Martello towers at Slaughden beach near Aldeburgh in Suffolk. The first reports were around 1.30pm which would usually have given me plenty of time to travel but yesterday I was on grandad duty, and it was impossible to travel so I watched the news in envy all afternoon but was pleased to see reports that the bird had roosted on a pipe of the tower. I called the Jims and arranged to travel up to be on site at 7am today with sunrise scheduled for 7.40am I assumed if the bird had stayed, we'd at least see it leave the roost.

We arrived at 6.55 and walked up to the tower in darkness to find around thirty birders on site and reports that a thermal imager had picked up a heat source on top of the pipe which was promising. Within ten minutes with the light improving, we could make out the shape of the Accentor on the pipe but by 7.15 it had a big stretch flew up onto the wall of tower then flew off around the back of the tower and out of sight.

The Martello towers

The enthusiastic scrum

It took around 40 minutes to locate the bird again. It was a bit of a scrum and I found myself at the back and although I managed to see the bird the views were poor until a guy next to me with a better placement let me look through his scope. When the crowd moved, I remained distant with three others and eventually had a magical reward when the bird flew back down the beach landing on the large boulders briefly before flying up onto the path close to me. Better still it then walked towards me giving views down to about ten feet or less.  Quickly the crowd gathered around the four of us, but the bird seemed unconcerned and continued to feed giving everybody the opportunity to enjoy it.

Alpine Accentor

Alpine Accentor Slaughden beach Suffolk

Alpine Accentor

Alpine Accentor

Alpine Accentor

Alpine Accentor

Alpine Accentor

I have previously dipped Alpine Accentor so this means I can remove it from the "dipped list"

My year list now stands at 243

My life list now stands at 436 (Mainland Britain only/BOU)

couple of local trips

My time birding remains limited, but I have managed a couple of local trips of late. Firstly I spent a morning at Grafham water in Cambridgeshire where we enjoyed a year tick with a drake American Wigeon that was difficult to pick out in the large duck flocks especially as they kept getting put up by a fishing boat that had very little regard for the wildfowl on the water. We picked out a Pectoral Sandpiper on the shoreline and a couple of Little Stints. Curlew Sandpipers were also present along with Dunlin, Ringed Plover and Grey Plover. 

We've also visited Lemford Springs for a couple of hours. Here we found several Green Sandpipers three Snipe, Water Rail and Kingfisher to name a few of the highlights. There has been a Jack Snipe reported but we failed to see it on our visit. 

Year list now 241

Grafham water

Green Sandpiper

Little Egret

Snipe

Snipe

Snipe

Water Rail

Water Rail