Scarce grebes

It's been a weekend of scarce grebes on the patch.

On Friday a juvenile red-necked grebe was reported on the sea to the south of Chibburn Links. I headed down there in my lunch break and picked up the grebe with a raft of scoter about half way between the Dunbar burn and Chibburn mouth. Red-necked grebes have always been scarce on the patch, my last was in January/February 2014 but most records on the patch have come from September and October. The species was more regular in the early 2000's, I saw them every year from 2002-2006.

Today a report came of a black-necked grebe on Druridge Pool, I trapped in the office so had to head down there when I got home, which I did. Colin and Jimmy were in the hide when I got there and were watching the bird and got me onto it. Another juvenile, it was hanging around with a group of tufties and coot on the edge before making it's way towards the floating island.

Incredibly, this is my first patch black-neck since 2005, when there was juvenile on the pool (there was also a red-necked grebe on the sea that day).  I'd only seen two before that, A juvenile for a couple of days in August 2002 and an adult int he May of the same year.

This makes black -necked grebes scarcer than long-tailed skuas, spotted crakes, sabine's gulls and red-breasted flycatchers on the patch!

I've not see much else on the patch at the weekend, I was too busy buffing my marrow for the village show...