MEGA - Great Snipe - Kilnsea, Yorkshire

 

Great Snipe - Kilnsea

Managed to get the day off work to go and have a look at this stunning little wader. I arranged to pick MD up on route and ended up leaving my house at 3.30am so the car was fully packed and we were on our way by 4.25am. The hoped for wet and windy weather never materialised and I was not surprised to get negative news through on twitter when we approached Doncaster at c7.30am. The little blighter had done a bunk...we decided to have a kip at Donny services and after about five minutes Mick woke me shouting...'It's there...it's there!!!' Back on the road in no time we arrived at 9.30am to find a small group of chaps photographing with their phones the snipe! Weird I thought as there was a pile of thousands of pounds worth of photographic equipment behind them... it then dawned on me...I looked down and it was 10 inches in front of them and far too close for a camera!

We stayed with the bird for a couple of hours watching it as it busily fed on worms and the occasional caterpillar. Although it was only a few feet away it was actually hard to photograph due to its constant bobbing feeding action. At one point it even wandered under a car on the driveway still feeding as it went!

After about every twenty minutes of feeding the bird stopped and hunkered up for a bit of shut-eye. It seemed to totally ignore the birders which were constantly coming and going, only occasionally opening its eye to check everyone was still watching!

After taking far to many photos and watching the bird through the bins taking in all the features we decided to start the long journey home, stopping off briefly for a look at a Red-backed Shrike and some grub on the M1. All in all a very enjoyable day in good company and a much wanted new bird for me. Here are a few more pictures for you to peruse!