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| Asian Desert Warbler |
Sometimes, just sometimes, this hobby really delivers and makes up for all the bad days such as last weeks traipsing around a wet and windy Spurn in a forlorn search for Greenish Warblers. You can guess from the blog title which kind of day yesterday was!
My plan was to get up early and head to Norfolk for two target birds, both of which would have been UK life ticks for me. My first stop was Thorpe Marshes nature reserve on the outskirts of Norwich for a Savi’s warbler. I stopped for a break from driving just after 07:00 and checked RBA. I was greeted with MEGA – Asian Desert Warbler, Holy Island!
This is a three start rarity with only 12 previous records in the UK and only one since 2020. Now I was in a real dilemma as to what to do. Holy Island was a 4 hour drive from where I was and 4.5 hours from the Savi’s but surely this was an opportunity not to miss and, if I got it, would almost certainly be my bird of the year! After some deliberation I decided to go for the Savi’s first and then head north.
Thorpe Marshes nature reserve consists of a lake surrounded by some fairly extensive reed beds on the south east edge of Norwich. The address googles as Whittingham lane which I had in my sat nav. Unfortunately, there was a Whittingham lane on each side of the lake as they used to be joined by a foot ferry and I ended up on the wrong side. Thirty minutes later I was parked on a main road close to the right end of the lane and followed the instructions to the site over a railway footbridge and into the reserve. I met another birder who said it was showing and gave me precise locations. Savi’s is another member of the locustella family. Ardent readers of my blog (I know there is at least one out there somewhere (Nick?)!) will recall that this family of warblers has a strange and rather unique song, they reel like an insect. On arrival at site the Savi’s was in song, a softer and somewhat less harsh reeling than the much commoner Grasshopper Warbler, but it was not showing. There were a number of other birds flitting around in the small willow where it had previously been seen including Sedge Warblers and a Reed bunting family. This caused some confusion as they were often buried in the undergrowth but the Savi's was eventually tied down and then flew up and showed quite well, if a little distant, on a dead branch. Photography was very challenging as the only viewpoint was straight into strong sunlight but I managed to get a few record shots and left very happy with my new UK life tick.
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| Savi's Warbler |
Some 4 plus hours later I arrived at the causeway to Holy island in Northumberland. The causeway is impassable at high tide but I had timed my arrival according and drove over the wet sandy causeway and onto the island. I had the map reference in OS locate on my phone which told me that the bird was only just over the causeway a few hundred meters to the left in some windswept fir trees. There were 10 or so cars parked at the closest point so I parked up and talked to a returning birder who confirmed directions and that the bird was showing off and on.
You can probably guess from the name that the Asian Desert Warbler was a long way from where it really should be. Quoting Wikipedia “The Asian desert warbler (Sylvia nana) is a typical warbler which breeds in the deserts of central and western Asia and the extreme east of Europe (Volga Delta area east to western Inner Mongolia in China), and migrating to similar habitats in southwestern Asia (Arabiato northwestern India) and the far northeast of Africa (Red Sea coastal regions) in winter.”
On arrival at the site there were 20 of so birders looking into one particular fir and I was told that the bird had been sulking in there for the past hour or so. I caught a couple of glimpses of the bird and then, for a wonderful few moments, it perched up right at the front and had a good old preen and sort out allowing me to get a few good shots and a short video. The most striking aspect of the birds appearance was its stunning yellow eyes. It used these to stare at its admirers with some apparent bemusement as to what all the fuss was about. Its plumage was much more suited to blending into its normal desert landscape rather than the fir tree it had ended up in. After this fine performance the bird flew off in the direction of a few more firs and was not located again before I left. I departed feeling elated with my days work of two life ticks including one major rarity.
Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
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