The Lincolnshire Bird Club

I have been sent this email and photos;

HI, I'm not a member, but I've attached a couple of photos of what I think is a Gey Phalarope. It was at Messingham Sand Quarry this morming.
9/11/07. Can you confirm this ID please. Not a vey good photo I'm afraid ( heavily cropped)as it was a bit far off even for my Bigma.

Regards
Ben Revell

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http://www.benrevell.co.uk/natureweb/index.htm

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Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

Definitely a Grey Phalarope. Google's Image search confirms it:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en ... a=N&tab=wi

The List of rare birds being not seen and missed/or not found but seen by locals at messingham is amazing,annoying,frustrating,other words i cannot use here,
1,Green Heron,
2,Albatross,
3,Grey OR Gey Phalorope
others..Little bittern.........by an infrequent visitor
4,Spotted Sandpiper,What is going on??? .Im not sure..its not as if its not being watched properly,it is!!.More mysterious than the Bermuda Triangle,Does anybody have any esoteric Theorys to explain this Phenomenon?.
Roger.

Could it be that when we go to what for us a common destinaton that we are half expecting to see nothing unusual and hence something in the distance that turns out to be a phalerope is dismissed as another gull.

Of course that argument doesn't hold water when you consider something like the green heron being found

My point is locals don't expect to see rarities at places like Messingham, Whisby or Swanholme Lakes (both on my doorstep) so don't visit that often and are somewhat casual in their observations when they do go.

Perhaps a lesson to us all

I think you are almost certainly right there Chris, when you watch a local patch for a long time you do become complacent and trudge around almost out of duty , without checking every single bird, particularly inland sites, I should imagine the coastal sites don't give you much chance for complacency as they tend to change daily with such a vast array of species to see .

There is also a bit of Sod's law in there as well, you can bet your bottom dollar if you check your patch from Monday to Saturday , then some guy passing through will find a mega within 10 minutes of being there on Sunday morning !

I try and keep away from Marston for 360 days of the year now in the hope that someone will turn something up , but its not worked yet !

Carry on

Trev

Actually there is some truth in what you say-you can beome complacent,wonderin" round in a daze thinking nothing is there,i remember thinking one day,shall i check the marsh area out,naah,i will go home,and its possible a green heron might have been waiting as the very next day one was found there!!!.but in the last couple of years ive done things differently ,I decided not to spend quite so much time in the hide and more time walking around checking every bird and listening at every call/song etc..and to me thats more interesting,apparently this is how mr Catley finds stuff!!!one of his methods.
For instance there is a large group of Reedmace/bulrushes just of the path to the wader hide,I check this area every visit for possible Penduline tit,Maybe it will pay off one day..
I check the gulls Throu on arriving found 2 little gulls 22/10,stayed 15 mins,I admit i may have not noticed them a few years back.,as they only flew round a little,escuse the pun!So even thou we locals are still missing stuff as Churchill said,"we shall never give in".
Roger.

Rog, once again I remind you and everybody in existence, (being that my previous, totally unoffensive entry has mysteriously vanished from this forum) that SERENDIPITY is the answer to your puzzlement about why "unknowns" see rare species at Msq sand pits.
No esoteric reason is required.
This word can be found in most dictionaries, I am not going to elucidate.

Dave Johnson

Dave its not been moved its still on here just scroll down a bit under Gey Phalarope !

Trev

You do not have to elucidate,i did know what it meant,but in most cases you are right,thou the spotted sandpiper was found by a top class birder,mines a pint Dean!!!
Rog.

Dave,

If everyone had your attitude towards MSQ no one would ever go there, especially looking for birds.