Mega at Finningley

Twas the day after the White Stork twitch Friday the 5th July and i was back at work till 1pm i always have birdguides on the computer at work so i can keep up with then news on whats around the district a week ago there had been a Black Winged Pratincole which was a mega bird and close to home but it hadnt been seen for a few days when news broke it was back at Finningley GPs so a quick text to a good friend and it was planned that after work we would go. Graham picked me up around 5ish and we were off only a short drive to the place where we needed to be . We arrived and had to park at the end of the lane as the parking spots were all taken by twitchers wanting to grab a sight of this great bird.

We set off walking which we had to walk for about a mile as the bird had been showing intermittently at the last pool on the right . The weather was nice sunny and muggy so off we set we checked the pools on the right as we walked down as it had been seen over a couple of these but no joy. We got to where we needed to be we had walked through the fields to get to where the birders were assembled when we arrived the bird wasnt on show as sometimes it would be hunkered down in the long grass there were good number of lapwing on the pool and this was the flock that the Pratincole seemed to favour and after about 10 mins i picked up the Pratincole in flight over the pool and got good flight views for roughly 20 minutes then the bird dropped into the long grass and at that point decided to walk back to the car and bird the pools down the lane as we rushed to get to the Pratincole and on the way back we saw 7 Black necked grebes which is a fab number and always nice to see these birds in summer plumage we watched these for about 20 minutes before heading back to the car. Although the Pratincole showed well in flight i didnt get any shots of the bird so i asked a birder from Doncaster if i could use his shots so here is one of this great bird and yes another lifer for me .

Black Winged Pratincole