Another yank duck...

Yesterday we had a look west, 2 Balearic Shearwaters were the best from a short seawatch off Pendeen. We spent most of the day at Hayle. I picked out the Green-winged Teal again, it showed much better feeding with the Teal and revealing those vertical white stripes. Also an unseasonal female Garganey, a Gadwall, 2 Yellow-legged Gulls (a 4CY and an adult with a yellow ring 'A1C' ringed on Gran Canaria!) and very oddly, an Arctic Tern on Carnsew Pool.

Photo by Calum Urquhart

Garganey

Anyway on to today...
I met everyone this morning and drove up to the Gannel Estuary going for the American Wigeon seen yesterday. As we pulled into the car park 4 horses bounded over the estuary and put all the birds up! They settled again so we had a look around...not a single Wigeon! We walked around a bit more to see if we could find them. There was a large group of Rock Pipits in the marsh about 30+. A nice pale bird caught my attention, it was a *Water Pipit*, some consolation. I called over to others but just I did this the birds flew off over the estuary. Some did returned including the Water Pipit but it only stayed briefly. It was obvious that there were no ducks around here so we decided to have a look at Fistral Bay. No sign here either, it really wasn't looking good. We had another, final, look a bit further up the estuary. The pipits had moved here and looking through them we picked out not just 1 but 2 Water Pipits, even had both in the same scope view. They're awesome birds! Whilst watching the pipits a Wigeon flock flew in! Unfortunately, due to all the people around the site they didn't settle doing a few laps of the estuary before flying of north to Fistral Beach. We raced back over there and looking on the sea finally managed to get views of the Wigeon flock and with them, the very smart drake American Wigeon! A rather bizarre place to see them, sitting on the sea!

Photo by Calum Urquhart

Water Pipit