Red-necked Phalarope; don't forget the flappy toes

After singing the praises of my Manchester patch last week it was obvious that the natural balance of karma would demand a negative about Manchester soon afterwards.  The six-day stay of a juvenile Red-necked Phalarope on Redmires reservoirs in Sheffield has finally tempted me to brave the roads, given that it flags up as just over 30 miles from home.  An 80 minute drive over Snake Pass and parking under the humid damp of a rain-soaked pine plantation and I was whistling happily as I walked down to the fence around the reservoir to search for the Phalarope.  These places always feel under-watched; perhaps a couple of dedicated locals walking every day, reporting back every now and again, but it made me wonder if the increased communication available to birders is concentrating more of us in the same locations instead of encouraging us to wander the bits in-between.  Perhaps a blog to come, there.

A very distant raptor spotted by a local birder resolved briefly into an Osprey before vanishing over the hills, and a Hobby hawked after Hawkers over the delightfully green foliage behind us.  And then there was the Phalarope, only two metres from the shore (and about 30 metres from us), whirling around close in front of a photographer with the size of lens I'd associate with deep space photography.  Quite why anyone carrying the terrestrial version of the Hubble telescope needs to be within touching distance of their target I'll never know, but he was slow-moving and low and taking pains not to flush the bird, which had a habit of heading close to waiting birders.  So at least he had the fieldcraft to not ruin everyone else's day.  

As you know, I have a fascination with the etymology of the names of birds.  Phalaropus lobatus is the scientific name of the Red-necked Phalarope, a bizarre double-naming after a feature you almost never see.  Phalaropus means "Coot-footed" or "feet like a Coot".  Lobatus means "lobed", another reference to the flaps on the toes that so resemble the feet of the Coot.  So just in case there was any doubt, this beautiful, fascinating wader with interesting gender dynamics, intriguing migration patterns to the tropical Pacific or Indian Oceans depending where in the extreme north it bred, and possessing a superbly energetic feeding style definitely definitely has flappy toes.  I love the work of natural historians through history and today, but I do sometimes get the feeling that they must have run out of imagination or poetry when it comes to some of these scientific names.  Who looks at a bird of such beauty, the females in particular, and thinks that the primary feature to note is their toe flaps?

One of the best things about seeing a rare or unusual bird in a place where people go walking is being able to show people who ask what you're looking at and why it's important.  I set my scope up on the grass verge above the bank and chatted with a steady procession of people who looked bemused at all the birders and photographers who had descended on their quiet hillside walking route.  After 20 or so people had had a look at the gorgeous Phalarope it swam off across the reservoir and was lost to distance.  I climbed the fence and clambered down to a broad 20 metre shoreline and sat down to wait on a rock, to see if it would come back towards me.  The guy with the huge lens had followed the Phalarope around to the far bank and he settled in to get some shots.

I've never been lucky with Red-necked Phalaropes before; I have good photos of Wilson's and Grey, but every Red-necked I've seen has been a distant whirl of clockwork frustration.  Until today.  Today, just as Mr long lens began to aim his bazooka-sized camera at the tiny Phalarope it took to the air and zipped low over the water right back to a spot just up the shoreline from me.  For 20 minutes I had the Phalarope to myself, feeding in the water 20 metres away.  The bird spun off back into the centre of the reservoir and I began to walk slowly back to my car.  As I neared the slope to climb back to the fence I heard a wader calling and the Phalarope flew back to the shore close by me again, forcing me to stop in my tracks for fear of flushing it.

Constant peeps and squeaks from the wader attracted a juvenile Pied Wagtail and they fed next to each other either side of the water line for half an hour.  I couldn't believe my luck; there was nobody else within 200 metres of me and I took hundreds of photos before just abandoning the camera and watching these two birds interact in front of me.  The Phalarope finally wandered off along the shore line and I got back into my car intending to spend an hour on patch.

Three hours later, and having travelled less than 30 miles, I was cursing the disgraceful state of the roads around Manchester.  3 hours 45 minutes to get home meant that I had no time for my own patch.  Every single major road was at a stand still.  Every motorway was reduced by at least one lane.  Some unfortunate chap had crashed his caravan into a set of traffic lights and the EIGHT separate sets of temporary traffic lights on my journey made it an utter nightmare.  I reflected that it's literally quicker and easier for me to get to Glasgow, or Flamborough, or Spurn than to drive around Manchester.  There are reasons to love where I live, but infrastructure is not one of them. 

Anyway, though in the immediate aftermath of the crawl home I'm not sure it was worth 5 hours driving, I finally have some reasonable photos of Red-necked Phalarope, and in the end I won't remember the traffic while I'll not forget the experience of a Phalarope close in.  Autumn has begun, and there will be a natural focus on the coastlines and the migration hotspots rather than these under-watched hills and reservoirs in the landlocked centre.  Who's watching the woodlands when all the birders flock to Spurn or Blakeney?  Who's watching the local patches when the glory of seeing a fall of migrants is right there on the coast?  I'm more guilty than most of neglecting my patch for the glamour of the rarity, though I'm starting to wonder what we miss closer to home when we assume there's nothing there to find.