Grey Phalarope, Ribble Ribble, Preston - 20th September 2011

It all started last week when I missed out on the Grey Phalarope at Fairhaven Lake. I'd been working away and didn't get chance to get over their until Friday afternoon at which time it had moved on (it had been reported on the RBA light map on Friday morning). A second Grey Phalarope was seen by Bill Aspin on the River Ribble in Preston from the A59 bridge (near Penwortham), a bridge I crossed on the way back from Fairhaven!
With a busy weekend I wasn't able to get up to see it until tonight after seeing it reported at lunchtime on the Ribble Estuary facebook page by Colin Bushell.
I turned up about 18.00 parking in the car park by the alotments and headed upstream to where Colin had seen it earlier. Unlike other trips out to add to my life list I found the bird pretty much straight away feeding on the south shore about 100m infront of the bridge. I spent about an hour watching it as it drifted downstream towards the bridge before flying 300m upstream and returning back with the returning tide.