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Tuesday 25 September 2012

Richards Pipit

Today I again spent the day working the patch to try to find a good bird or two, and after initially drawing a blank, a check along the clifftop at West Runton came up with the goods.
 
The first decent bird encountered was this ultra confiding Lapland Bunting which was feeding alongside the clifftop path.
 
 
Walking further along up to a dozen Wheatears were busily feeding along the clifftop along with 3+ Whinchats, and then I then flushed a large pipit from the grass alongside the path which thankfully only flew a short way and landed in one of the clifftop fields. I was pretty certain it was a Richards Pipit but naturally ideally wanted some views of it on the deck.

Frustrating I couldn't relocate it in the field where it had gone down, but to my relief after about 3 hours of walking up and down checking all the likely places, I again flushed it but this time managed to keep tabs on it so over the next hour or so I managed to get some decent views on the ground, as well as hearing it calling in flight several times too. I was also able to get a few pictures too which all served to confirm my suspicions as to its id. and made an excellent reward for all the searching over the last few days.