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A day trip to Spurn which didn't exactly go to plan

Red-Necked Phalarope


On Wednesday this week I decided to do a birding day trip to Spurn where the target bird was an Artic Warbler, a bird still needed for my UK list. The Artic Warbler is by no means the rarest of vagrants but many tend to be one day wonders with a predominance of records in Shetland and the Western Isles. There were also a few other nice back-up birds in the Spurn area if I dipped the Artic.

 

Without a break Spurn is a 3.5 hour drive for home and I would normally get up at silly o’clock to avoid the traffic. However, with our Doberman still recovering from her recent operation, see here, I had to walk our other dog before I left. With it now not being light until 06:00 this delayed my departure to just before 07:00. Checking RBA during an on-route coffee stop told me that the Artic had been seen again early doors that morning, normally an encouraging sign as birds, if they relocate or continue their migration, tend to do so overnight.

 

The Artic has been reported in the bushes around the discovery centre, a well know hot spot for rarities and where I saw my first and only Two-Barred Greenish Warbler in the UK, see here. I arrived just before 11:00 to find a few other birders vainly searching for the Artic. I joined them in their fruitless search for an hour or so and then decided to cut my loses and drive back the mile or so to Kilnsea Wetlands where a pair of juvenile  Red-necked Phalaropes were located. I walked to the main hide and was amazed by how little water there was, the wetland had clearly suffered greatly from the drought. This meant that the good numbers of common waders were quite distant on the shore line. A young Spoonbill was also present, sleeping on one leg with its head tucked in as they often do. My neighbour, a local birder, announced that a young Caspian Gull had just flown in, a less than annual tick on my UK list, mainly because of the difficult I have in identifying sub-adult birds. After a while I made my way around the back of the wetlands to Beacon pond where the Phalaropes were located. I soon spotted them feeding in the characteristic frantic manner of Phalaropes, often whizzing around in dizzy circles. It never ceases to amaze me that these small fragile looking birds spend the vast majority of their lives far out at sea. They are mainly artic breeders but a very small number breed on the northern Scottish isles and I have been lucky enough to see them in their smart breeding plumage on Uist a few years back.

 

After an hour or so I went back to the discovery centre but there was still no sign of the Artic so I did a slow walk along the canal path, a spot usually good for migrants. At Cliff Farm I found a Pied Flycatcher and a Redstart in the garden feeding on insects on the lawn. I wondered whether the Flycatcher was one of the many I had seen locally early in the spring at Wyre forest. No doubt it will soon be off to tropical Africa for its winter holidays.

   



Redstart and Pied Flycatcher

When I got back to the  discovery centre I met a local birder who told me that the Artic had previously been coming back to some willows picking insects off the bark low down. We both watched the willows for an hour or so but we only saw a couple of Willow Warblers. It was time to cut my losses and head for home. In fact the Artic was never seen again and had clearly moved on.


There seems to be a correlation between my beloved Brighton and Hove Albion winning or loosing and my twitching success. Brighton won on the days I added my last two UK ticks, the Cape Gull and Greater Sand Plover but lost their first game the night before my Spurn trip - I shall clearly have to organising my twitching around Brighton's results!!!

 

In the garden the mediterranean summer has produced bumper vegetable crops. The greenhouse in particular has been very productive with my best ever crop of red peppers and Italian plum tomatoes. I’ve been making yummy tomato and red pepper soup using my own garlic , red chillies and onions. There are now lots of helpings in our freezer to remind us of the summer and keep us warm through the  long dark winter nights.





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

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