Stone Curlew at The Mere this morning

As I was walking through the fields south of Hornsea Mere this morning I saw a gull in the set-aside area. It wasn't the usual Black-headed or Herring Gull so I looked through the bins and saw it was  Common Gull. They do come in after breeding and over-winter but this one was very early so I thought I'd take a few photos. As I was snapping away I saw another bird take off in the background, through the camera lens.

I could see it was a wader-like bird so rather than waste time putting the camera down and getting the bins I just fired off a few shots so I could review them afterwards and see what it was. I lost the bird in the trees so I returned to the Common Gull. This was 09:33 according to the time on the photos.

As I reached the corner of the field I decided to have a look at the photos and see if I could id the other bird. I looked and zoomed in as far as possible and although the image was very grainy, my first thought was Stone Curlew. Can't be though, not round here I reckoned. So I carried on towards the hide.

When I got to the hide a friend of mine was in there so after the usual pleasantries I asked him if he'd take a look at the photos to see what he thought. Unfortuantely he didn't have his glasses with him so he couldn't see properly but I said it was a possible Stone Curlew so he asked if it had a yellow eye and I said yes. While we were discussing further id features, another friend, Mark, turned up and he looked and said straight away that it was indeed a Stone Curlew and it was a first record for Hornsea Mere!!! Wow!

We went out to where I had first seen it over an hour ago and it had returned to the same place. Mark was able to get some photos and I got some better ones too.

We had lost sight of the bird while we were hopping around like excited school kids so after waiting for a while and casting around what may have been suitable habitat for it near by, we separated as I was due back home, and we agreed that they would look for the bird over towards Wassand Hall where there was likely habitat and I was going to check the set-aside and ploughed areas towards Southorpe Road. They relocated the bird at about 13:15.

While we were looking for the Stone Curlew we also saw Hobby, Bullfinch, Skylark (3), Marsh Harrier (2), Buzzard, Kestrel, Curlew (3) and Lapwing (2).

On my way to Southorpe Road I came across my first Painted Lady butterfly of the year. What a great day!!

Oh yes, the Common Gull looked like a 2cy bird to me. It still had some of the juvenile feathers...