littoralis

the first week of March always produces a variable passage of spring plumaged littoralis Rock Pipits along the Humber; whether they are wintering birds which have moulted/acquired summer plumage or birds just passing through is hard to tell but along my local patch there have been very few sightings since early January this year and in previous years I have often noted a gap in sightings between the disappearance of wintering birds in mid Feb and the first littoralis in late Feb or early March; this stunning bird was on Waters' Edge this morning but twice it flew just as I pressed the shutter; fortunately Canon can and did and the rapid shutter caught the bird flying out of the frame; it then flew over 1km and I left it alone only to be told late afternoon that it had been refound by the old wharf; I managed a few distant shots there before it flew off again; spring birds are often identified as Water Pipits as they look so different to typicla petrosus Rock Pipits