As my jolly alarm roused me into the realm of consciousness earlier this week at 1:45am, I pondered the question - am I really this mad? I quickly concluded yes, and set off into the night. Shortly after being picked up, we ploughed northwards (primarily up the A1(M)) for six hours. A few minutes before we reached our destination of Holy Island, at around 08:20, we were greeted with the dreaded pager message of 'No sign of White's Thrush this morning'. Disaster. We continued onto Holy Island where we concluded that there was in fact no sign of the White's Thrush.
We then made the quick trip of just four hours to Bempton Cliffs, for the main target of the day - Eastern Crowned Warbler. This Phylloscopus leaf-warbler's home range is eastern Asia, and the Bempton Cliffs individual represents only the fourth record for Britain (ninth for Western Palearctic), well done to the finder David Aitken! Arriving in the overflow car park early afternoon, I quickly joined the gathered crowd of twitchers watching the bird and within a few minutes it was on show, spending the next couple of hours showing absolutely stupidly well!
Incredible views of down to five metres were had, and it was so great to finally grip back on this species after missing the two previous twitchable UK birds. It was feeding well all afternoon, catching flies at a near-constant rate, so it came as no surprise to me that it was gone by the next morning after it's three day stay (the same duration as the previous two twitchable birds).
"Tseeoweet" - the distinctive call of a Yellow-browned Warbler. At the edge of the thicket where the Eastern Crowned was present, one or two Yellow-browed Warblers hopped out into view, providing my best views to date of this charismatic species, and a nice contrast to the usual obscured fleeting glimpse through sycamore foliage.
At Bempton, neither the Arctic or the Greenish Warbler showed, and the Bluethroat seen earlier in the day had performed a vanishing act too. After quite a while watching the ECW, we moved onto Flamborough Head where the Taiga Bean Goose was still present on North Marsh, concealed in the midst of a throng of Greylags. It was nice to have reasonable views of this subspecies after dipping multiple times in the Norfolk Broads over the years.
We began the journey back, and I arrived home at 10pm, after what had been a great day out. But just don't mention White's Thrush to me…
Happy birding,
Max.
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| Holy Island |
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| The infamous willows |
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| Migrating Barnacle Geese on the Northumberland coast |
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| Eastern Crowned Warbler |
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| Twitchers! |
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| The assembled crowd of twitchers |
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| Gannets with a backdrop of Filey Brigg |
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| Gannet gliding at Bempton |
"Tseeoweet" - the distinctive call of a Yellow-browned Warbler. At the edge of the thicket where the Eastern Crowned was present, one or two Yellow-browed Warblers hopped out into view, providing my best views to date of this charismatic species, and a nice contrast to the usual obscured fleeting glimpse through sycamore foliage.
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| Yellow-browed Warbler |
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| "Tseeoweet" |
At Bempton, neither the Arctic or the Greenish Warbler showed, and the Bluethroat seen earlier in the day had performed a vanishing act too. After quite a while watching the ECW, we moved onto Flamborough Head where the Taiga Bean Goose was still present on North Marsh, concealed in the midst of a throng of Greylags. It was nice to have reasonable views of this subspecies after dipping multiple times in the Norfolk Broads over the years.
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| Tree Sparrow - Bempton |
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| Tree Sparrows |
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| 'Migrating' Feral Pigeons on the Yorkshire coast - vismig at its best! |
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| Flamborough Cliffs |
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| Taiga Bean Goose |
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| Day 14... The Greylags still think I'm one of them... |
We began the journey back, and I arrived home at 10pm, after what had been a great day out. But just don't mention White's Thrush to me…
Happy birding,
Max.
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