An interesting few hours birding of mixed fortunes at Newport yesterday!
A nice mixed flock of about 60+ small waders that split into various sub groups as time went on. Initially there were four juv Little Stints together with part of the flock which also included about 30 Ringed Plover and 25+ Dunlin.
Later, at distance, I was puzzled by a calidrid wader which I couldn't quite pin down. It had a short black bill (about head length I guess) and was apparently in non breeding plumage, with clean whitish underparts, and grey brown fairly uniform upperparts (and black legs). When seen in isolation it looked like a non breeding plumage L Stint, but was actually about the same size as a Dunlin and didn't seem to have the jizz of either! It didn't seem to have extra long primaries (as in White-rumped sand). Just a very short billed Dunlin in non breeding plumage??? Too far away for my old camera to get any pics unfortunately.....
Colour ringed curlew
There was a colour-ringed Curlew feeding along the channel. It had a red ring on the left leg and a green over a yellow ring on the right leg. The yellow ring bore the number 83. Be very interesting to know where it is from.....??
A party of 12 Wigeon are presumably fairly new in and there was fem Goosander north of the bridge. Some nice views of kingfisher tool. Ten Sandwich Terns were fishing along the shoreline.
An exciting but ultimately frustrating finale to the day!
While walking back along the footpath to the Iron Bridge, still perplexed by the odd calidrid, I noticed some movement in a berry-laden hawthorn near the lime kiln. I put the bins up: blue tit, chaffinch, and then, shock, noticed a large vey grey warbler towards the top of the tree, that was acrobatically reaching down from one branch to one below, half upside down, to pick off a berry (reminiscent of how waxwings sometimes feed!). Within a couple of seconds, my brain was shouting Barred Warbler! My brother (also a birder) was ahead of me and much closer to the tree but he hadn't seen it. I called out to him but in a split second the bird had vanished! and despite watching and waiting it never re-appeared, and then we had to leave! Very frustrating!!!
George Mee, went to have a look and found Blackcaps and Lesser whitethroats, and amazingly, briefly, a Wryneck on the north side of the bridge, but sadly no Barred W. I can rule out Lesser whitethroat as it was far too big, and lacked the clean white underparts and contrasting dark hood of that species.
Despite my strong gut feeling, I don't feel I have enough to submit this a definite record.
The joys of birding I guess!! the one that got away............?