Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat – A Red Eyed Vireo at Durlston Country Park in Dorset

 

The Red eyed Vireo is a comparatively common migratory bird in North America. Every Autumn a very small number are blown off course by storms and end up in Europe. The Colins bird bible rates it as a one star rarity equating to less than ten UK records per year. It is therefore a somewhat surprising omission from my UK bird list. In fact, I’ve not even ever dipped one! BOU lists 172 previous records the vast majority of which only stayed one day. So this is a definite case of snooze you lose.

 

There are  33 species in the true family of Vireos, a purely new world species, only 3 of which are on the UK list. The Philadelphia Vireo and Yellow throated Vireo being the other two both of which have only been recorded once. They superficially resemble old world warblers but are not related to them.

 

On Sunday just gone one was reported at 08:15 at Durlston Country Park just outside of Swanage so I checked with my ever suffering wife and left home on the 3 hour journey to the site. It was reported intermittingly on the way down although it was said to be elusive. With a couple of breaks I arrived just after 12 on a bright sunny afternoon and was told that the bird had not been seen for an hour or so. With the clocks having gone back on Saturday night I had around 4 hours to find the bird.

 

There were perhaps 10 to 15 other birders present concentrating on a small wooded area where the bird was last seen. As the afternoon progressed I reconciled myself to the fact that this was looking like my first major dip of the year. It was pretty quiet other bird wise but it was pleasant enough being outside in the unseasonable autumn warmth and sun. I’ve mentioned before that I have a tendency towards melancholy and depression, it’s just the way my brain chemistry works, but over the years I have developed various strategies to keep the black dog at bay most of the time.  I have a tendency towards  catastrophizing meaning I fixate on the worst possible outcome and treat it as likely, even when it is not. I’ve found that the best natural therapy for all this is to be outside and active as much as possible and it is hence no coincidence that my two big hobbies are birding and gardening. I love growing my own fruit and vegetables organically and we try to be as self-sufficient in these as possible. 

 

So as the afternoon progressed with no sight or sound of the Vireo I tried to just chill out and enjoy being outside in the sun. Just before 16:00 a small flock of Goldfinches flew overhead and an eagle eyed birder noticed the Vireo in amongst them. It flew  to some trees by the visitors centre up the hill from its previous location and perched up in a sparsely leafed Sycamore where it gave pretty good views for 15 minutes or so.

 

Adult Red eyed Vireos are mainly olive-green on the upper parts with white underparts. They have a red iris  and a grey crown edged with black. There is a dark blackish line through the eyes and a wide white stripe just above that line giving them very distinctive facial markings. They have thick blue-grey legs and a stout bill. They breed in Canada and the northern US states migrating to South America for the winter.

After 15 minutes or so, although we did not see it fly off, the Vireo disappeared into the foliage and, with the light rapidly fading, I decided to make a move, victory snatched from the jaws of defeat indeed! True to form it was not present on the following day.

 

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