White-tailed Lapwing finally in Lincolnshire

What a truly bizarre end to 2021; December 31st - in summary a set of house keys were lost this morning; we were going out for the day but had to wait in for the locks to be changed so the day out was curtailed to a wander along the Ancholme with 1200 Pink-feet and 26 Whoopers the best birds - back home at 14:15 and I got a message from Steve Routledge saying that a photographer had seen a wader with yellow legs in a field at East Halton but he was in Scarborough - at just 13 miles away it was worth a trip though it quickly dawned on me that I would have at lest an hour of light when I got there; the bird would presumably be a Lesser Yellowlegs that had been photographed two weeks previously but had then gone awol 

I arrived to find no-one there apart from an old lady with two terriers but on the edge of the grass field beyond the Greylags and farmyard geese was a single wader;  it did indeed have yellow legs but it was not the Yellowlegs but was the White-tailed Lapwing!!!!!  after 3 months of hoping it would hop across the county boundary it had moved about 30 miles to be discovered in a bizarre location and a bizarre manner-  thus ended 2021 with a first for Lincolnshire after a tick free year -

New galleries and trip report on my website Varanger and Finland March 2013

Just updated and reorganised/rejigged our March 2013 Trip Report from N Finland and Varanger on my website. linked below - have added a lot of new images and reworked all of them with new software -- Have tried to convey the feel of the conditions as well as the amazing birds - there is a very restricted range of species there in winter but what there are are mostly true quality birds - a small selection below please click the link below to see the full galleries

https://www.grahamcatley.com/tripsabroad/northern-finland-and-varanger-march-2013 

finches and buntings in the Ancholme Valley

 while about 99.9% of the arable fields are totally devoid of birds a couple of strips of sunflower and game cover held a good collection of finches and buntings including a few Tree Sparrows, 5+ Brambling and a flock of 22 Corn Buntings but overall the depressing state of farmland birds has never been more evident -- all with the Canon R6 and 400 DO2 plus the 2x converter on a dull morning at slow shutter speeds with a predominantly white sky - spring is around the corner

male Merlin

 this beautiful little male Merlin has been a winter regular on the Lincs coast for three winters now at least but always evaded any sort of image so pleased to at least get something last week on a sunny afternoon 

first-winter Great Northern Diver and Shag

This first-winter Great Northern Diver is currently residing at Covenham Reservoir along with two first winter Shags - this first-winter Shag was ringed on the Isle of May, Fife in June 2021 

first-winter Purple Sandpiper

 Having walked a fair way from Mablethorpe North End to the outfall I was not hopeful of seeing this bird as the steps were being regularly disturbed by dogs and their owners but as I walked around the far side it appeared in the tide wrack on the beach being displaced to the adjacent concrete groin by a dog walker at one stage but it was soon back and catching plenty of prey in the wrack including some small crabs - it was only when I had finished photographing that I realised I had taken all the images on 2000 ISO but with the R6 it really doesn't matter