Birthday Black Red!!

I'd planned to visit Bridge's to search for Redstart & Pied Flycatcher yesterday... However, pre-birthday celebrations on Friday night left me feeling slightly rough Saturday morning... So, had a bit of a lie-in & Mand cooked me a fab birdthday fry-up! Then I headed down to VP as I didn't have a great deal of time before I had to pick my daughter up... Whilst at VP I scored my first Willow Warbler of the year, but little else (the Barwit was still present, plus 2 Yellow Wagtail!!).
Then I recieved a text from Yvonne which read 'Male Black Redstart at Pole Cottage'!!! What a fantastic tick & I had to get this bird... I raced to the Long Mynd & Pole Cottage, where I joined Jim & Yvonne, but the bird had briefly disappeared!! After around 15 minutes of searching, Yvonne located the bird over on the other side of the plantation. The bird then showed brilliantly perched on a fence post!! A cracking male Black Redstart on my list!!

Better still, I got to my ex's on time to collect Erin & had a fantastic birthday!! However, Spider had called me in the morning &, as it turned out, correctly predicted Common Scoter would turn up on one of the mere's... & indeed, 12 Common Scoter were seen at Colemere late that afternoon!! Oh well, hope to grip scoter back later in the year.... I'm having a much needed couple of weeks of the Guinness now!!!...