The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Reported - Black Stork, Gibraltar Point NNR late morning, circled north over Croft Marsh

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Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

A fantastic find by Anthony Bentley and the first ever record for Gibraltar Point!!!
He saw the bird initially from Harvey's Hide, it then flew south and circled over farmland west of Wainfleet Range. It gradually gained height and was lost to view heading back northwards. It has since been seen over Croft Marsh circling around with a couple of buzzards. I saw the bird from my flat window about 15 minutes ago!!

Cheers,

Richard

Was it aged Richard? Any photos?
Probably worth reminding people that Black Stork is a BBRC species so all records will need submitting to BBRC

Hi Graham

Steve Humphreys got some photos of the stork and they will be put on the Gib blog tomorrow. The bird appears to have been a juv. I asked Steve to check all of his photos to see if there was any evidence of a ring and there was not one visible.

Kev

Cheers Kev
Just seen photos of the bird that over flew Alkborough and as expected it looks like a juv as well: plotting which birds went where seems tricky and how many are actually being seen. Presumably the Tetney/Donna/theddlethorpe / Gib birds are one and the same but did the Blacktoft / Alkborough bird go down the Trent or East ? Or were all birds different as the Reads Island bird seems to have been. The Wykham bird seems to have got lost or did it fly to Aberdeen? Even very big birds are easily lost particularly if they get high up. The Theddlethorpe bird presumably fed/rested up on the coast for 20 hours or so before hitting Gib which begs the question why did the Blacktoft bird fly over such a great looking feeding area as Alkborough unless it was simply intent on moving on?
ND had a Beeeater at Alkborough last night over a 20 minute spell from 20:00 but in spite of 3 of us being there within 5 minutes it was not seen again nor was it there this morning just the 6 Spoonbills, a fly by female Common Crossbill and an early arrival of 360 Barnacle Geese

Photo of Alkborough bird now in the album -- maybe a little gap between secs and inner prims on left wing but could just be misplaced feather

Saturday morning update : After fruitless searches to the west of Gib Pt from 06.00, one of the Mill Hill crowd (c.8 people) picked up the Black Stork circling low over trees just to the north of the reserve at 09.55. It remained in the air for about 45 minutes, circling and slowly drifting south. It was watched until out of sight having gone approximately SW from the end of Sykes' Farm. This is the 3rd time in the last 4 days it has appeared on the wing about mid-morning. Scanning from Mill Hill seems to be the best bet. It has not yet been seen on the ground.

Phil Hyde