With two birds earlier in the year in Ireland, the chance of one turning up on the mainland was surely possible! Thankfully one has, in Greater Manchester, been originally found by a RSPB group three days ago who thought the bird was a red-necked grebe but was re-identified through photographs. I made my way there with Malc Curtin, as everybody had seen the bird the previous day as we were working. On arrival, we got on the bird straight away. The bird was nothing to rave home about, but at least it was on the list. I couldn’t believe that the grebe had been misidentified as it looked nothing like a red-necked grebe. Anyway, this was the first sighting of one of these species since 2001 in Cornwall/Devon Upper Tamar Lake, 8th January to 24th February.
