Firsts for Britain.....

I think Fair Isle has accounted for nearly 30 additions to the British List, or something like that.  How many is it?  Please tell me. Or don't.  I think I read it somewhere once.  Or maybe I didn't.
So how many has Spurn accounted for?  I don't know......

Erm......Stilt Sandpiper. About 1954?  I could just look it up on the net, but I'm going to try off the top of my head, so this lot could be miles off!
Now then, Greater Sand Plover?  No, I seem to think that wasn't actually the first.
Penduline Tit?  Is that one?
I'm not even going to mention Demoiselle Crane (wankers), Mottled Swift (twats) and Oriental Cuckoo (not bothered didn't see it).
Marmora's Warbler?  No, I think that singing one in South Yorkshire was before that.  This bird, if I remember rightly, was found by the old dear that used to bird Spurn many years ago.  I tell you what, she was keen.  She was always in the field, bless 'er.  She always had a head scarf on, anyone remember her?  Anyway, I think it was her that found the Marmora's and asked for help to confirm the ID.

Spotted Towhee?  It was accepted as a western race and therefore an unlikely vagrant, so rejected on possibility of being an escapee.
Black Lark.  Black Lark I hear you say?  Oh yes mamma!
1985?  May, no April is in my head.

I came across the excerpt in Central Library concerning the finding of Britain's first Black Lark:

"Twas the early morn.  A soft mist had drifted melancholy south and out of danger.  I wandered along the peninsula, seven whores in tow, I was but a minute away from the mythical moment.  I strolled, then stopped. I lifted field glasses to beneath my brow and took aim at the wondrous creature that behold me.  It was black.  With strange magical white fringes to the feathers about it's person.  The bill was almost creamy, reminiscent of the chicken soup we'd had the whores serve up during last eve's banquet in Dunbirdin.  The bird stooped neath the weather most horrid and revealed a penis so bulbous and foul that we were in no doubt that we were, indeed, watching a male Lark" taken from The Memoirs of Barry Spence, 1975.







Seriously, I think Nick would be pleased to know it's now been accepted.  Rest in Peace.




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