Another Big Twitch

The weather was much nicer this time around

Well wouldn't you know it, the day after Jarrod and I left the area, the Lesser Yellowlegs returned and so I had to go back up there at the weekend. And so, once again, I set out on the 6 hour drive north to spot the rare American vagrant wader. This time, however, I enlisted the help of the pros and e-mailed a couple of eminent birdwatchers and arranged with them to meet up to find it. One of them is local to the area and knew exactly in which swamps it likes to hang out. By the time Sunday morning came around, others had come up with the same idea so our initial group of 4 had swelled to 12. I don't like birdwatching in groups this big but there was no option on this occasion.

The Yellowlegs' fame is spreading

The local expert came up trumps though and we found the Lesser Yellowlegs #364 in the second swamp we tried. I was happy to see that it has made friends with a small flock of Marsh Sandpipers. The pros also found me a group of Mangrove Gerygones #365 which I would have just passed off as the identical looking, and much more common, Brown Gerygone. Apparently the call is diagnostic. Of course it is.

A pair of Wandering Whistling-ducks

Unfortunately I didn't get a nice picture of the Yellowlegs for you all as, just as I was about to go for it, one of the muppets in the group went crashing into the swamp and flushed it. Magic. As I say, I don't like big groups especially when a couple of them are clearly idiots. Anyway, the experts were exceptionally nice people and, with their help, it was mission accomplished and another two for the list.