MEGA!

Back in the homeland for a family visit, and a chance to get a truly rare bird on the list!

A stop at Fairburn Ings on the way back south, and a walk down Lin Dyke at the western edge. There was a Great White Egret but that was not the target. A Sparrowhawk shot through the bushes much to the consternation of several Blue Tits and some Redwings that erupted from nowhere, and then there it was, that harsh call I hadn't heard for years. Two of them, one each side of the path. I eventually got some great views of one of them, my first Willow Tit this century!

Here in East Herts the Willow Tit's close cousin the Marsh Tit is something of a speciality, so I've had a good look at them over the years, and the immediate things that struck me abut Willow Tit was all the things the books say; the bib was more diffuse over the lower region, that pale wing panel was clear, the cap was noticeably matt, and the cheeks seems higher and paler, the black cap more of a wide black line when seen from above. But the call is the clear and obvious thing.

Other than that, a Curlew, then off to St Aidans's and Marsh Harrier, Pintail, Stonechat.

I got to asking myself when the last time I saw a Willow Tit was, and its hard because I have not been the most assiduous record keeper in my birdwatching career, I tend to make a note of the main birds as I see them at the time, and given my travels round the country and the decline of this species it was not obvious the last time I saw them that I wasn't going to see another one for ages. I certainly haven't seen one this century. Trawling through my notes I used to keep reasonable year-lists with dates,  and I suspect it was 20th June 1987 at a local North West Leeds site. I was just finishing up at Uni and the following month would catch the train south to start my career, and in a few months would be seeing Sabine's Gulls in strange corners of South West London, but not Willow Tits.