Baikal Teal – Crossens Outer Marsh, Southport, Merseyside, 4^th December 2013

Sketches of the Baikal Teal at Crossens Outer Marsh, attempting to capture the wacky head pattern (strangely reminiscent of Red-breasted Goose and even summer-plumage Wilson's Phalarope).

Another twitch! And, more to the point, a successful one. (By way of context, for a whole host of reasons, by the 2000s and 2010s – if not a few years before – my twitching activities had slowed, and typically I was only seeing two or three new species each year. However, there were brief flurries involving more such activities; in both 2004 and 2005 I had upped the number of new species to a heady five, and during the last few months of 2013 I twitched the Mourning Dove on Rhum a month or so before this twitch, and the Brunnich’s Guillemot in Portland Harbour less than a month after it).

Anyway. Where were we? Although busy with work (I was in my ‘providing ecological and ornithological support to single wind turbine applications’ phase!) I had a few days my father’s in Chesterfield at the end of November / start of December 2013.

During the course of this, on Saturday the 30th November, an adult male Baikal Teal was found at Marshside RSPB Reserve, near Southport in Merseyside (or Lancashire, in old money!) but there were conspiracy theories about an apparent hybrid duck ‘showing characteristics of Baikal Teal and Teal’ at the same site in the days previous. There was also the small matter of the hitherto presumed escape Ross’s Goose there...... .

The initial photographs and views on the 1st December helped to allay initial fears as to the bird’s genetic purity; the bird looked good, after all, for Britain’s fifth Baikal Teal and helpfully it was hanging out with Wigeon and Teal and trying to look wild.

As such, it was, when all was said and done, un-ringed, fully-winged, had no signs of hybridisation, had arrived at a ‘good’ time of year, and behaved like a wild bird.

Therefore, when I travelled home from Dad’s on Wednesday the 4th December, I did so via Crossens Outer Marsh and the Baikal Teal. Obviously.

Once there I parked up on Banks Road and walked from there out onto the seawall on Crossens Marsh. Here I bumped into Ken Shaw and John Nadin who were twitching it from Scotland. I also chatted to Chris Tynan, of the Sefton Ranger Service managed by my good mate Dave McAleavy, who was skiving off to see the bird.

Anyway, the Baikal Teal was showing reasonably well amongst the other ducks out on the marsh, although it later moved and I then saw it better from the Marine Drive, having returned to my car, and then mounted the kerb and parked on the pavement alongside the road so that I could get better views before continuing home to Edinburgh.

I sketched it in my notebook, and captioned the sketch ‘a lot going on’; it had a very complicated plumage which is difficult to describe. However, here goes. It had a complex head pattern which involved black area around the eye. A thin whitish line curved down the lower face from the rear of the eye patch and in doing so separated areas of buffy-yellow on the lower cheek and lores. The rear of the cheek and the area behind and above the eye was dull green, and again a very thin black line separated this from the adjacent yellow, whilst a very thin white line fringed the edge of the green on the neck. There was a thin white line between the green and the yellow and the dark brown crown. The upper breast was pinky-brown and the lower breast and flanks were grey, with a ‘Green-winged Teal’ white line and a less obvious white line between the flanks and the under-tail coverts. The under-tail coverts were black and the tail was grey-brown with orangey outer tail feathers. The back and wings were grey-brown with long mid-brown ‘aigrettes’ which were dark-centred. 

Phew! Incredible looking (and sounding!!!); and this was the ‘suppressed’ first-winter male version!

Baikal Teal at Crossens Outer Marsh, Southport, Merseyside, December 2013 (photograph credited to John Nadin).

Green Heron – Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, 16^th November 2005

Later on on Wednesday the 16th November 2005 (having already duly banged in the Black Scoter at Llanfairfechan, as described in an earlier post https://collapsedbirder.blogspot.com/2023/06/black-scoter-off-llanfairfechan-gwynedd.html ) it was urgently back to the car and onwards to hopefully make it a two-bird day by doing the same with the Green Heron at Red Wharf Bay on Anglesey.

This had turned up there on Monday the 7th November 2005 (although it had probably been around for at least eight days before it was first reported). It had also been proven that this bird was the same one that had previously been seen at Schull in County Cork, Ireland between the 11th and 13th October 2005.

Time was of the essence; it was mid-November and so days were short and it was already reasonably late in the afternoon. I also had to get back to somewhere appropriate before Gary, Chris, Steve and I met up to go to Cologne for the weekend.

I managed to navigate and drive my way from Llanfairfechan to Red Wharf Bay without too many problems. On arrival I then managed to find the appropriate place to park. Then all I had to do was locate the bird, somewhere out in the salt-marsh creeks.

Again recollections beyond the very basic are minimal to say the least. Like at Llanfairfechan I think I was well and truly on my own, at least in terms of other birders. There may have been one or two but I really cannot remember. However, I think I can vaguely remember that there were locals walking and dog-walking alongside the salt-marshes and it just might have been the case that they shared their own inside information; the bird had been around for a considerable while by then and was something of a local cause celebre. I also dimly remember that I may not have had on the most appropriate footwear for the circumstances – I probably hadn’t considered it a priority to change my shoes, although these weren’t necessarily the best for tramping around the salt-marshes.

Whatever, I reasonably quickly and easily located the bird and spent some while following it (or attempting to get ahead of it to take photographs, as it was surprisingly close in the salt-marsh creeks). It moved very quickly though, so it wasn’t easily to keep up with (or take photographs of!).

I did so reasonably successfully though.

It was a small heron with a large bill. The upper-parts were mainly a dark browny-green with hints of iridescence. The cap was dark and separated from the back and wings by a rufous collar. The under-parts were a rufous (brick) red especially on the side of the neck and the upper breast, which was streaked with pale lines. The lower breast was white and streaked with rufous lines. The coverts had pale fringes. The bill was mainly dark grey although the lower part of the lower mandible was orange. The legs were greeny-yellow.

Seemingly, this bird was again (like the Black Scoter) the sixth individual ever to be recorded (although this includes a record from 1889 and a bird that was seen on both Jersey and Guernsey in the Channel Islands). In a curious way, it was long-term redemption; just months after I graduated from the University of Hull in 1982 just the second ever Green Heron turned up at Stone Creek in Holderness in late-November, but at the time I had just no idea about rare birds and quickly getting news about (and twitching) them. In some ways I regret never being part of the whole Nancy’s grapevine thing. As such, it wasn’t until the advent of Birdline in the 1980s that I could readily access such information. And then it was a downhill slope, as evidenced by these tales!

Green Heron, Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, 2005 (photograph credited to Steve Young).

Kentish Plover – Ferrybridge, Dorset, 2^nd May 1988

So, on Monday the 2nd May 1988 (presumably a Bank Holiday), Paul Pugh, who had again been visiting me in Dorset whilst I was working there, disappeared off to see a Greater Sand Plover at Dawlish Warren in Devon. Sure enough, Birdline almost immediately produced something much closer – I was ‘phoning from somewhere near The Fleet and the bird was at Ferrybridge – all of a couple of miles away, if not less.

So it was that I was able to tick off a Kentish Plover as it was feeding on the dried mud-flats.

It was a small, slim plover which had pale brown upper-parts, and white under-parts including the throat, neck sides, face and a collar. It had a rufous crown with a dark patch on the upper lores, a broad white supercilium, a dark eye-stripe which broadened and curved downwards behind the eye and a black patch on the upper-breast. It had a short, thin black bill and darkish-olive legs.

27 years and one week later, I finally caught up with another, the first for my Scottish list, at Tyninghame, East Lothian (a fantastic site, at which I had previously seen two Greater Sand Plovers).

Kentish Plover, Ferrybridge, Dorset, May 1988 (photograph credited to unknown).

I couldn't readily source a photograph of the bird I saw actually at Tyninghame on the 9th May 2025, but here's one, which, fantastically (on the basis of plumage details) is considered to be the same bird at Kilnsea in East Yorkshire on the 10th May 2025 (and it was then subsequently seen at Pegwell Bay in Kent on the 11th May 2025!!). The wonders of digital photography and social media! (Photograph credited to Colin Bushell).

White-crowned Sparrow – Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, 10^th January 2008

Although it had apparently been around since the 3rd January 2008, the rather incredible news of a White-crowned Sparrow in Cley-next-the-Sea first emerged at midday on Sunday the 6th January 2008. Later that week I was with the erstwhile love of my life in Ryton-on-Dunsmore for my ‘regular’ six days or so with her until her children returned home on the following Sunday evening.

Obviously, on the basis of the mantra ‘go as soon as possible’ I was very keen to see the bird as soon as possible.

However, as the bird was in Cley-next-the-Sea in North Norfolk there was a counter argument to wait until Elizabeth was able to come with me. Just when this would be wasn’t necessarily clear, so in the end, under the pressure of dipping, I cracked and twitched from on my own on Thursday the 10th January.

North Norfolk from Warwickshire was an interesting drive. But, whatever, I successfully arrived in Cley in a timely manner and managed to park up. As it was both mid-week, but a few days after the news was released, the crowds present weren’t too large. I joined the crowd assembled alongside the Cley-Holt road opposite the house of the original ‘finders’, the Bendings, from where the bird could be seen when it came out to feed on the seed that had been scattered on the drive to facilitate the management of the twitch.

As a result of the management of the twitch and the timing of my visit I quickly and easily enjoyed excellent views of an adult White-crowned Sparrow in Cley, in January!!!! Not a bird I had particularly envisaged catching up with anywhere, let alone in these circumstances.

Having visited Texas on a birding trip in April 1992, and honeymooned and birded and worked and birded in California in 1997 and 2000 respectively, I was already familiar with Zonotrichia sparrows, but needless to say, this particular one got a good coat of looking at.

The under-parts were a pale slate grey merging into a more olive on the rear flanks. The face, neck, collar and upper back were also pale slate grey. The rest of the upper-parts were a complex mix. The mantle and the scapulars were same grey with russet brown streaking and the remiges and the coverts were similar but had black centres and white fringes or tips, which created two distinct wing-bars.

White-crowned Sparrow at Cley-next-the-Sea, January 2008 (photograph credited to Kit Day).