It was Sunday 27th April 2008 at 1430 hrs when I arrived at Soil Hill . The morning had been continuous rain and it was now very cloudy with occasional showers and a slight S>2.
The bird I had in mind was Ring Ouzel as several had been reported around the country and I badly needed my first Swallow of the Spring.
After watching 3 Wheatears for several minutes I walked through the fields towards the triangulation point where I immediately heard the clicking of a Ring Ouzel which is similar to that of a Blackbird but higher pitched. I wandered around for a while unable to get a sighting of the bird so I headed back towards the scrapes to scan from a distance for the Little Ringed Plovers which had been present for a few days.
I noticed a small wader run across the scrape area and thought that it was one of the LRPs so did,nt take much notice until it flew a short distance giving a strange buzzy type call that I was,nt familiar with. When I got the bins on it I was gobsmacked " a DOTTEREL " here on Soil Hill and only a few days after NK had said, watch out for Dotterel, its our turn.
With trembling fingers I rang NK and put the message out on the Calderbirds grapevine, then came the long wait for the cavalry to arrive, you,ve always that fear that the bird will take off before anyone else sees it although I had taken a couple of record shots on a poor camera that I had in those days.
To make matters worse 2 nuggets on scramble bikes were riding round passing the bird within a few feet but luckily the bird stood its ground . After a while, to my relief, birders started appearing and I was able to put them straight onto the bird which was now showing well and shortly afterwards the hill was alive with birders and cameras.
So once again its proved that if you stick to your local area you,ll eventually be rewarded and the feeling is much greater to get a bird such as this so close to home.
BS
