After my long day out last Thursday, see here, I planned a relaxing weekend gardening and perhaps doing some local birding. Everything changed, however, on Friday afternoon when a very showy River Warbler was reported at Ham Wall RSPB reserve in Somerset. I waited for the bird to be reported on Saturday morning and as soon as it was set off on the 100-mile trip down to the reserve.
There have been 48 UK records of the River Warbler since 1950 but 29 of these have been on Shetland and Orkney. Many of the other records have been of 1 or 2 day short stays meaning that the last twitchable bird on the UK mainland was 11 years ago. It rates as a 3 star mega rarity in the Colins bird bible, i.e one or a few records per decade. The River Warbler belongs to the Locustella genus of warblers and there is a big clue as to their song in that name in that they sound more like insects that birds. The only comparatively common member of the genus in the UK is the Grasshopper Warbler who’s strange reeling song is often mistaken for a cricket. Locustella warblers can also be sulky little blighters, preferring to sing from dense vegetation. The River Warblers song is quite unique and is often compared to the rapid clicking of a sowing machine. They are summer migrants who usually spend the warmer months in eastern and central Europe before heading to Africa for the winter.
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| River Warbler |
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Ham Wall has a comparatively large car park which was quite busy when I arrived with a few spaces left. I hurried down the path towards the reed bed where the bird was located passing many contented birders on the way back who confirmed that the bird was still showing well. I met Ian, a friendly birder and photographer who I know from a number of other twitches and he gave me some advice on where to stand for the best views and chance of photos. When I arrived at the reed bed location there were some 20 or so birders present, a little surprising as I was expecting more. The bird was not on show and I was told that hated phrase, “you should have been here 5 minutes ago!” As it turns out there was no need to panic as the bird soon reappeared and regaled all present with its loud sowing machine impersonation. It was favouring some twigs out in the open in front of the reeds and gave astonish good views. After 15 minutes or so my birding buddy Nick from Oxon arrived with his wife Anne and we chatted and caught up on gossip. Ham Wall is rightly famous for its breeding population of Great White Egret and sure enough one flew passed up as we chatted. I also saw a distant Bittern flying low over the reed bed. After an hour or so of the bird being almost on continuous display I decided to make my way back to the car and start my rudely interrupted relaxing weekend.
The gods of birding, however, had not quite finished with me as a Red-Necked Stint was reported as showing well on the Blyth estuary on Saturday evening. Now this is and even rarer bird than the River Warbler with just 7 UK records in the last 60 years. This vagrant was also well and truly lost as at this time of year it should be breeding in the tundra of eastern Siberia. They are long distance migrants wintering in Southeast Asia and Australasia as far south as Tasmania and New Zealand.
On Sunday morning I mentioned to my ever suffering wife that the bird was still there and, bless her, she said “did I want to go” well is the pope catholic! I walked the dogs first and then set off on the 250 mile journey to the Blyth estuary above Newcastle.
The motorways were busy with families retuning home after the half term break but after a 4 hour slog I arrived at RBA’s designated viewing point. The bird was showing very distantly from the bank at a location called Sleekburn Spit at the confluence of two rivers. I could just about make out its rusty red neck that gives it its name through the scope but while it was a UK tick for me the very distant views felt very unsatisfactory and disappointing. I noticed that 10 or so birders had somehow made their way to the spit and were obviously getting much better views so I set off with my OS locate app in hand to try and work out how to get to this advantageous viewing point. It took me half an hour or so to work out exactly how to cross the river and drive the narrow roads to park by a footpath which appeared to go in the right direction. After another hour or so with a few false starts I manged to navigate the footpath network down onto the spit. The bird was keeping company with a small flock of Ringed Plover and slowly made its way along the shoreline until it was comparatively close to where we were located. By this time it was mid-afternoon and the heat haze from the hot early summer sun was truly punishing. The camera auto focus searched and searched but failed to get a good lock on the hazy subject but the views of this great rarity were none the less spectacular and the slightly troublesome journey to the split now felt very well justified.
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| A Very heat hazey shot on the Red-necked Stint |
A flock of Eider were enjoying the mid afternoon sun on the end of the spit. The females were attentively looking after this year’s youngsters always on the lookout for threats. The males, however, were fast asleep in the sun almost as though they were dozing after a few Sunday lunch pints in the local pub!
Around 5’o’clock I made my tired but very contented way home – what a weekend!!!
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