The Real Deal?

Yesterday, I managed to get myself up to Lincolnshire. It'd been a bit of a fraught time, as while in Egypt last week, I'd been told about a decent looking juvenile thayeri candidate - a bird that I was mega keen to see. Sounds a bit ungrateful given all the quality in Egypt, and it really does paint me out to be one sad gull-induced bloke.

Anyway, it all came good as just northeast of Brigg I managed to locate the bird early morning, sitting in a ploughed field with a load of Herrings and LBBs. Bob was pretty chuffed, having missed it on Saturday and he offered me a handful of Brazil nuts in celebration.

It showed fine, both on the deck and in flight, and overall I was pretty happy with it - a little snouty, but if that was all I was fussed about then it wasn't too far from being the real deal. I really liked those dark centred juvenile scaps - something Josh and I had been chatting about in Egypt - as well as the really uniform chocolate brown tertials. I've been a real basher of several recent claims (including this winter's bird at Enniskillen that shows remarkably hoary scaps), and having seen only seen the adult at Killybegs in 1998 and the Barnatra bird of 2005 (both accepted by the IRBC but do not make me sleep easy!), this in my eyes is the best Thayer's to have turned up in Britain and Ireland (along with the original Cork bird, and the juveniles at Newport Dump in 1998/1999 and Killybegs in 2003).