The Lincolnshire Bird Club

27th August

WRYNECK 1
HONEY BUZZARD 1S
Spoonbill 5 S
Pied Flycatcher 5
Garden Warbler 3
Whinchat 3
Redstart 2
Wood Sandpiper 1
Wheatear 3
Marsh Harrier 2
Peregrine chasing a feral pigeon over the saltmarsh!
Little Gull on Jackson's Marsh
Grey Heron 6 W

26th August

WRYNECK 1 (Wash Viewpoint)
Pied Flycatcher 3
Redstart 2
Great Skua 50 S
Arctic Skua 65 S
Red-breasted Merganser 2 S
Little Gull 3 N
Common Scoter 500
Gannet 130 S
Kittiwake 3 N
Manx Shearwater 6 N
Sooty Shearwater 1 N
Arctic Tern 60
Common Tern 30
Sandwich Tern 200
Little Tern 3
Knot 35000
Dunlin 6000
Kingfisher 1

Sightings by John Shaughnessy, Kevin Wilson, Nigel Lound, Richard Doan and George Gregory

A bit surprised to see the Honey Buzzard aged as a juv on this date: though not impossible most juvs are still not independent at this date with peak passage at Falsterbo in mid September: any photos?

I think the observers involved have cautiously retracted the ageing of this bird in light of this information.

We had problems ageing and sexing the spring HB at Gib - we now think was a dark female but surprising how this reminded us of a juv when first seen, particularly with pristine condition wing and tail.

Kev

Interesting Kev: females are very different in build to males and can look a lot more common buzzard like due to broader wings and shorter proportionate tail: dark birds also tend to appear larger than paler birds due to the visual reasons demonstrated in BB or was it Birding World several years back. Even dark males tend to look bulkier than pale males which is clearly just an impression we register rather than reality.

There are a few pics of the spring Honey Buzzard at Gib on the Observatory blog - would be interesting to get some comments on sexing and ageing.

We presume the same bird present from 30th May into mid June.

Kev

If so it must have been feeding somewhere -- did anyone come across any angry wasps? could of course have been feeding on amphibians but the forest cover at Gib is hardly extensive - a very intriguing record

The photos from May 30th and June 10th certainly seem to show the same bird and the underwing pattern certainly looks like a female; there are no known records of 2cy HB in Northern europe according to Dick so it would have to be older than that and from the photos I don't think you could go further than 3cy or older