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Wednesday 6 January 2010

Water Rail .............. a garden tick !!!!!!!!!


Yesterday while scraping the snow off the car a neighbour said you are interested in birds Brian, I have a funny little bird running about the garden, oh ! I said (still scraping away ) what does it look like , well I have looked in my book and I think its a Water Rail !!!!. Not very likely I said giving my thought s on the likelihood of such a bird turning up just yards away , but the description given sounded very like one, can I come and have a look , so camera in hand off we went , seeing the area was from free from snow under the large Leylandiis after a few minutes a shape could be seen in the darkness , first the flanks, then the backside and then the head indeed it was a Water Rail, so I hung around getting glimpses of it until it wandered, for a second or two, into view , so I rattled a few shots off for the record....... apparently it has been around for 3-4 days. So if someone says they have a funny little bird in the garden at least go and have a look.........


5 comments:

Ipin said...

It's always worth checking out funny birds in the garden stories, remember the Belford Cowbird and Ian Fisher's Siberian rubythroat in Durham....

For the water rail it is a case of needs must, as it's usual habo is frozen it has to look elsewhere for food

John Malloy said...

Cracking garden tick Brian!

Northumbrian Birding said...

I often wonder just what does come through your garden, like Spotted Flycatcher one day when I just happened to look down the garden before going out, not a mega but not repeated either, next door used to have Golden Pheasant but that doesn't count.
Brian

Anonymous said...

Definately cold weather movement, Brian and a fine garden tick.
My next door but one neighbour phoned me the other day to say that 4 large birds had just landed in my garden. 4 Grey Partridge nonetheless.

Northumbrian Birding said...

The problem now is I spend an awful lot of time looking into the garden ,Chaffinch numbers building Brambling would be nice !!
Brian