Red-spotted Bluethroat: I have only ever seen one Bluethroat in the UK, this was back on the 20th of June 2013 at Martin Mere, however it was pretty distant and nowhere near as showy as this individual.
This bird is the complete opposite as it is incredibly confiding and is giving some fantastic views. Subsequently there has been plenty of brilliant images and still it has taken me ages to pull up my socks and go see it.
This is partly due to my work commitments and having a pretty busy winter survey season and partly down to distance as I hate driving to Linconshire and Norfolk from Lancashire, too many miles and too many A-roads for a bird I have already seen in the UK and abroad.
Once we had the bird on the deck and showing I thought to myself "why did I put this off for so long?" Seeing this bird was well worth the 3 hour journey, the miles and the pain in my derriere.
The bird was showing well as soon as we arrived and came right out in to the open after around 30 minutes. The bird was even calling and singing while perched up in the reedbed.
Willow Tree Fen was a really nice place to spend the morning and gave the Bluethroat a great supporting cast.
We had two Marsh Harrier hunting and spooking the hundreds of wildfowl, a couple of Stonechat and a couple of Bearded Tit in the same area as the Bluethroat.
From here we were going to go to Rutland Water, however I wasn't keen on adding any extra time on to the journey back and seeing that we would end up on the right side of Yorkshire Gary and I decided to go try again for the male Pine Bunting in Dunnington.
