Getting totally collared at Spurn – one incredible day, 3 life ticks!

Note to self – remind me to bemoan the summer doldrums for birding as this results in extraordinary events!

Collared Flycatcher

So, in my last blog I bemoaned the summer doldrums  for being a very dead time for birding. Well, the god of birding clearly is one of the two people who read my blog and she decided to do something about it!

Starting on Monday, easterly winds drove early continental migrators onto the north east coast in general and Spurn in particular in a birding event that would have been very special in the migration hotspot of October let alone one of quietest  times of the year in early August.

The big mega, a Collared Flycatcher, is a very rare bird indeed, and, together with a very strong supporting cast of Icterine and Greenish Warblers, multiple Red-backed Shrikes and other hard to get birds in Oxfordshire such as Pied Flycatchers, there was no doubt at all where I was going on Tuesday!

I set off from home just after 5am with the mercury already touching 20 degrees and arrived at Spurn after a  coffee stop just after 09:00. Not surprisingly, it was already fairly busy with birders and I headed straight to an area known as the Warren where the Collared Flycatcher and Icterine Warbler were being reported. Collared Flycatchers rate as a Mega on the bird twitching scale with just 48 UK records to date. It breeds in southeast Europe and Eastern France to the Balkan Peninsula and Ukraine and is migratory, wintering in Africa.

Now I’m about to show what a hypocrite I am!

I’m not a fan of ringing birds for two main reasons. Firstly, the destress caused to the birds by catching and handling them can only be guessed at but must be enormous. Secondly, the return of scientific information that this technique yields is very low, for every thousand birds ringed  less than one is recaptured. I will certainly admit that some useful migration data has been obtained from recaptured ringed birds but with modern ultra-light satellite trackers it is possible to obtain much more detailed and usefully scientific information while only causing distress to a very small number of birds. This technique, for instance, has revolutionised our understanding of European Cuckoo migration and the challenges they face, information that ringing was very unlikely to ever yield.

Ok so why the hypocrite?

Well this poor Collared Flycatcher was caught in the mist nets at Spurn, ringed and identified as such. It’s a first winter female and so similar to a Pied Flycatcher that I’m really not sure even a black belt expert could identify it in the field. To make matters worse the poor bird has subsequently found its back way to the mist nets another 2 times!

The advantage of Spurn when looking for a rare bird, unlike, say, the New Forest, is that there is very limited vegetation. The scrubby area around the Warren is quite small and although the Flycatcher was very mobile it was showing very well as it flitted in and out of the vegetation doing exactly what is says on the can.

Collared Flycatcher

The Icterine Warbler was at the same location but showed much less often;  quite consistent with the literature description of a bird that prefers to sit in and sing from fairly dense undergrowth. It breeds in mainland Europe except the southwest, where it is replaced by its western counterpart the  Melodious Warbler. It is again migratory wintering in Africa. I was struck by its simple beauty being a comparatively large warbler with  greyish-green upperparts and  delicate light yellow underparts.

Icterine Warbler

After a couple of hours watching these wayward little beauties and, as is my wont, chatting to other birders present, I departed on foot towards the canal where two juvenile Red-backed Shrikes had been reported. I was told that two had also been seen that morning on the coastal path out towards the point, whether these were the same birds or not I cannot say.  I found one of the Shrikes, somewhat distant for photos, engaging in its favourite pastime of sitting on a post, flying down to grab some unsuspecting invertebrate and then returning to its perch to enjoy its snack. In the same area I also recorded Whimbrel and Pied Flycatcher, both year ticks for me.

On all my other visits to Spurn it has been some combination of overcast, cold, windy and wet but the heatwave had stretched its scorching fingers to the north and by midday it was positively baking. I made my way slowly back to the car while musing on my very successfully morning and enjoyed my picknic lunch with yet another cup of coffee – yes I’ll admit it I’m a caffeine addict! Phone reception at Spurn is very limited but I managed to get a brief signal and checked what else was around. A Barred Warbler had been found pretty much in the exact same spot I had been watching the Shrike from only 45 minutes ago! Feeling a bit drained by the heat, I drove as close to the location as I could get and walked the short distance to the reported spot. I met a birder coming the other way who I had been chatting to earlier at the Warren who  turned out to be the finder of the Barred Warbler. He told me he had seen it once briefly in flight and pointed to where it had landed. A few other birders were gathering and scanning the hedge, but some 30 minutes of searching gave no further sightings so, having had very good views of this bird species before in the UK, I decided to move on before I wilted even further in the heat.

I was now faced with a choice of how to spend the remainder of my day. I quickly checked the journey time to a very showy summer plumage Pacific Golden Plover further up the coast and immediately dismissed it when the reported travel time came back as three hours. I pondered going to the local Kilnsea wetland where a Pectoral Sandpiper and Little Stint, both of which would have been year ticks, were located but opted instead for the fifty minute drive to Flamborough head for another shot at a Greenish Warbler. This is a bird that I have never seen but have dipped several times in the past.  After the slow drive on the small costal roads I arrived at the lighthouse car park on the headland. It was packed with cars, but most holiday makers seemed to have moved away walking the headland or enjoying ice-creams in the local café. I spied a small group of birders scoping a small patch of vegetation next to the lighthouse and enquired about the warbler. I was told it was showing on and off and had last been seen 15 minutes or so ago. My experience of trying to see rare warblers invariable involves staring at a bush for long periods of time so I settled down for a potentially long wait. While waiting for a view and my life tick, I was entertained by another Red-backed Shrike sitting on the fence near the warbler location. It was very attentively scanning the long grass and then flying down to catch an insect . At one point it perched up on a weathered concrete block quite close to us and tucked into its latest catch.

Red-backed Shrike

What I though was the Greenish Warbler appeared briefly and very restlessly in the hedge then dived back into cover before I could confirm its identity. After another hour or so it put in another brief, but much clearer appearance and I was able to see its diagnostic features, a pale single wing bar, very strong and thick supercilium extending well beyond the eye and  a short primary projection.

Greenish Warbler

At 18:00 I decided to call an end to a really wonderful days birding and commenced the 4 hour drive home. 

If I had written the perfect script for the day it would have been this!

In the garden the hanging baskets have benefited from the hot weather, plenty of water and chicken fertiliser, the hot border is looking fab and the Mediterranean weather has produced the best Italian pasta tomatoes that we have every had! 

One of our ten home grown hanging baskets

Part of the hot border

Roma pasta toms

A very full greenhouse!

I think I’m getting less tolerant of the heat as I get older. I used to love it but now find it uncomfortable. It was 35 degrees in Standlake mid-afternoon today, but a sharp thunderstorm has dropped the temperature to a cool 25 degrees now. Here's hoping for a cooler and better night’s sleep then!

Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!