Snow Bunting.

With my best adventure kecks freshly pressed and (almost) ready for action far, far, away, I wanted to see if my battered old ‘scope was still up to digi-scoping duties, given the lens is covered in more scratches than a Chris De Burgh record once any intelligent person has had their hands on it for any length of time.
While my P900 is great and far more grown-up and everything (and far cheaper of course than scratching ‘scope lenses to pieces on a regular basis), you can’t beat a bit of digi-scoping, so the long staying Snow Bunting on the beach at Southport seemed a good subject to test out getting back into bad habits again…

I nipped up at lunchtime today and the bunting was feeding on the foreshore below the seawall up at the Fairway end of Marine Drive.
It was frequently hassled by Pied Wags, so flew about a bit, but I just sat and waited for the bird to trundle back up the beach towards me, which it did after a few minutes.
What’s not to like about Snow Bunts?
Trilling call, classy “arctic” vibe and fine feathery baggy troosers too.
The bird seemed happy in its own universe most of the time, but froze whenever it heard the small finch flock twittering overhead, as if it equated the calls with a threat.
Generally ignored me though, which seems to be the norm these days.
I left it happily munching seeds around the clumps of old salicornia (get me, okay, marsh samphire) and saltmarsh grass.

A few Twite with Linnets on the beach here too, but only four or five that I saw, while two Goldcrest were moving through the marram at the back of the Marine Drive car park before I pulled out – autumn passage is still seriously on the go then.