Red-knobbed-Coot-1206, originally uploaded by Paradise in Portugal.

We noticed a real rarity in SPEA‘s recent newsletter to us which we received last week. A Red-knobbed Coot had been seen on a lake close to a village near our normal Plains Birdwatching tour, so we decided to try to find it, and on the third lake we checked there it was.
It’s not often I find a lifer nowadays on my “home patch” and all the more exciting for that …