Christine's walking & birds blog

Dorney

This is one of two yellow wagtails which were with the cattle on the common. 

A stunned-looking wheatear was sitting quietly on Monument Hill. I tiptoed away after getting a shot leaving the bird still there. 

Yesterday evening there were fifteen snipe on the Eton Wick flood, but I couldn't see the dunlin. I did eventually locate one today, but it kept disappearing behind clods of mud. The bill appears straight in this picture, but then curved bills often do look straight at a distance (in my experience, anyway).

The lapwings flew up in a panic at one point and the dunlin went up with them, uttering the harsh "treeep" call several times; just as with the "swee" calls of the yellow wagtail earlier, this really makes the sighting for me.