Saturday 15th April 2006
	The main talking point of the day was the appearance of a stunning male Hooded Merganser on Unst, Shetland. Spring is prime time for the discovery of Nearctic wildfowl and this individual certainly felt like it should be a genuine vagrant. A Coues’s Arctic Redpoll was a good find at Darlington, Co Durham whilst a Laughing Gull at Southport, Merseyside briefly in the evening may have been the bird from nearby Marton Mere, Lancashire that temporarily went missing. Yet more Alpine Swifts were found; three at Bray, Co Wicklow and one over Maidenhead, Berkshire. Single Alpine Swifts at Hampstead Heath, London and Barnston, Wirral proved popular attractions whilst in Glamorgan the Bonaparte’s Gull showed again in Cardiff Bay and in Co Down the wintering Barrow’s Goldeneye remained in situ at Quoile Pondage.
-  Chris Batty, RBA