A first winter Black Throated Thrush had taken up residence in some school (institute?) grounds in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. As we had only been out on a couple of birding trips this year we thought that a trip over to see it would be nice. We met in Newhey and with Bob K driving made good progress over the M62/M180 etc, with Steve, Chris B and myself for company. Upon arrival the rain had begun to fall and during our time on site hardly stopped! Thankfully a fellow birder was on site and pointed us in the right direction to see the thrush, the bird sat in a tree at first, then thankfully, it flew onto the ground and gave us all good views as it dragged a couple of worms out. After a couple of minutes the bird flew back into a tree and remained perched up for the rest of the time we were there.
We decided to head for Blacktoft Sands RSPB near Ousefleet where, after calling in at the visitor centre, soon noticed that a couple of the hides were inaccessible, due to flooding. We spent a pleasant hour seeing: - 8+ Marsh Harrier, 3 Avocet, 20+ Ruff, Cettis Warbler (belting out its song) lots of Redshank, Black tailed Godwit and ducks.
We headed back towards Fairburn Ings RSPB reserve and in Village Bay we managed to locate 2 superbly plumaged Black necked Grebe, we also took the unusual method of having to put a telescope on a partially hidden Greenfinch, a species that has declined such a lot in recent years! Moving along the valley we made our final stop of the day at Swillington, well known for having good footpaths and lots of walking to do! We really only managed to hear a couple of Bittern booming but lots of birds were seen and enjoyed. We headed over the hill into Lancashire having all enjoyed our day out.
