19/10/2018 "Dipped" on Jack Snipe but got White Stork and Rustic Bunting

Wednesday 17 October 2018

The Moors NR, Redhill

Shaun, Alan and I travelled to The Moors Nature Reserve near Redhill hoping to see the Jack Snipe that Alastair had told us about.  Sadly it did not show but we did find 2 Common Snipe and an obliging White Stork (GB24 from the Knepp Estate I am reliably informed).

Friday 19 October 2018

Wanstead Flats, London

• A relatively easy twitch early this afternoon saw me in London at Wanstead Flats looking at the much publicised Rustic Bunting - a "lifer" for me!
• The bird was showing well as I arrived but it was very flighty.  Eventually I got great views in my scope when the bird went to ground and started to move around. 
• The great man himself - Lee Evans - was present and was very helpful in monitoring the movement of the bird.



courtesy of Josh Jones and Twitter

• The rustic bunting (Emberiza rustica) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae. The genus name Emberiza is from Old German Embritz, a bunting. The specific rustica is Latin for "rustic, simple".^[2]
• It breeds across northern Europe and Asia. It is migratory, wintering in south-east Asia, Japan, and eastern China. It is a rare wanderer to western Europe.
• It breeds in wet coniferous woodland. Four to six eggs are laid in a nest in a bush or on the ground. Its natural food consists of seeds, and when feeding young, insects.
• This bird is similar in size to a reed bunting. It has white underparts with reddish flank, pink legs and a pink lower mandible. The summer male has a black head with a white throat and supercilium and a reddish breast band.
• The female has a heavily streaked brown back and brown face with a whitish supercilium. She resembles a female reed bunting, but has the reddish flank streaks, a chestnut nape and a pink, not grey, lower mandible.
• The call is a distinctive zit, and the song is a melancholic delee-deloo-delee.