Skegness & Gibraltar Point

Today Steve, Brian and I made a long-planned out-of-area birding excursion to the Lincolnshire coast. We decided to get together for some birding a while back but decided on Lincs yesterday, in light of the weather conditions looking great for the east coast.

We did the Skegness seafront in the morning, after a quick stop-off at Langtoft for the Wryneck. More on that later... We saw precious little and there were certainly no rares to be had. Best birds were Woodcock, Lesser Whitethroat, Stonechat, Brent Geese and Chiffchaff. Not really what we were after...

A depressing stream of rarity news from Holderness came through on the pager... Olive-backed Pipit, Pallas's Leaf Warbler... Yellow-browed Warbler... possible Yellow-breasted Bunting, Barred Warbler... Richard's Pipit... Bluethroat... Red-breasted Flycatcher... White's Thrush - surely this isn't fair?

There were a few waders on the creeks.


Redshank


Bar-tailed Godwit (right) and Redshank


Bar-tailed Godwit (right) and Redshank

Unfortunately, insects, not birds, provided the highlight of our visit to Gibraltar Point. Sorry. I think I've done Common Darters to death now.

Common Darter

In common with the rest of the Lincs coast, the place held plenty of Goldcrests but not a lot else! It was comforting to speak to some other birders who reported that they, too, had found nothing but Goldies during the day. It's funny how there were rarities in Yorkshire and Norfolk, but nowt in Lincs...

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 62 with 16x eyepiece