Firecrest!

After a morning's ringing session (more about that later) I drove out to Silkstone near Barnsley, with Jayne, to "twitch" a Firecrest that has been present at the sewage works fora few weeks.

We arrived just before midday, and spotted a small group of birders, so headed in their direction. After about 10 minutes, and lots of false starts (pesky Goldcrests!!!), we managed to spot the bird, and watched it for about 10 seconds before it disappeared. We had another 10 -15 minute wait, before the bird was found again, and this time it hung around for about 1 minute, and gave some reasonable views. A great bird, and my first since at least 2010. I didn't manage to get a photo, but here's a link to a great shot on the Bird Guides website.

While looking for the Firecrest, we spotted a few other birds, namely: Treecreeper, Long-tailed Tit, Blackbird, Song Thrush and Pied and Grey Wagtails on the neraby sewage words.

This bird was, of course, a "year tick", and it's the second of the week, following a Red-legged Partridge that I saw stood on the top of a farm building in Apperknowle on Thursday. I was a bit taken aback to see it on the top of a building as I've only ever seen this species on the ground before!

Year List update:
118 - Red-legged Partridge
119 - Firecrest