best self found birds

 nationally 

yellow breasted bunting fair isle august 1989 

oriental pratincole blakney point 4th june 1993 

broad billed sandpiper at hicksons flash fairburn ings 12th may 1996 (first for west yorkshire)

night heron thorne moors june 1996 (first for thorne moors)

raddes warbler beacon lane kilnsea october 2005 

home calderdale 

its where i spend most time birding so not a surprise ive found a few decent birds, with most being seen at elland gravel pits which i went nearly daily from 1987 to 2000, despite it now being called cromwell bottom it will always be EGP to me!! sadly the place is now too overgrown 

anyway i think the rarest bird ive found is

grey headed wagtail june 1990 Elland Gravel Pits 

i was watching the spotted sandpiper from near the banking that separates the 2 lagoons when i saw a wagtail flying towards me it looked to have some yellow so i thought grey wagtail, as it got closer it was an overall yellow/green colour with a dark head,it landed on the lagoon but was not seen again 

i carried on my walk puzzled by the wagtail, i had seen yellow wagtail before in the uk  but never with a dark head 

that evening on returning home i phoned tony gough(bradford recorder and friend) to tell him of my find 

he said it sounds like a blue headed wagtail, i was happy with that conformation and recorded it as such 

the next day after work i cycled to EGP, i headed to the lagoons parked my bike by the canal lock and walked down the dip to the lagoon where i saw tony gough mick cunningham and tony cunningham, i asked 'spotted sand?' the reply was 'no' a bit bemused i asked what you looking at? tony said 'your wagtail....its grey headed wagtail'

for a 17 year old birder it was validation 

now was it coincedence that the last time i saw tony gough was on tresco at the turks head we enjoyed a few pints before the boat back to st marys that would be 1998 and we talked about the wagtail 'a cracking find lad" 

and mick cunningham the last time i saw him was on beacon lane kilnsea we had a good chat and we ended up finding a radde's wabler