Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat – Britian’s fifth Rufous-tailed Robin at South Landing, Flamborough
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| Back of the camera screen grab with many thanks to Adrian Webb. |
Just over a week ago, I slipped while birdwatching on Malvern’s North Hill and badly twisted my ankle. I heard a sickening crunch and was left hobbling in pain, but luckily my sturdy walking boots prevented more serious damage. It took me three hours to hobble and crawl down the hill, and a week before I could put much weight on my ankle.
Early this week, the seemingly endless westerly winds briefly shifted east, bringing a mouthwatering array of scarce migrating vagrants to the east coast. With my mobility limited, I was, to put it mildly, thoroughly disheartened.
Wednesday morning brought the standout discovery: an intrepid birder found a Rufous-tailed Robin in a wooded gully near the South Landing car park at Flamborough, Yorkshire. It was not seen again until late that day. The four previous records were all elusive birds that stayed for just one day, two on remote Scottish islands, so a longer stay would trigger a major twitch. Viewing was reportedly difficult: the gully’s small stream was largely hidden by vegetation and visible only from a short stretch of fencing beside the path. I convinced myself that I would be Ok to hobble to the site and set about making plans for a Thursday twitch.
With large crowds expected for this mega-rarity and viewing space so limited, I considered two options: leave home at 2am to secure a spot before dawn, or set off at a more reasonable hour, spend the morning looking for a nearby Radde’s Warbler—a species still missing from my UK list—and try for the Robin in the afternoon, when the crowd would hopefully have thinned. My injured ankle was severely disrupting my sleep, and the chance of adding two species to my list in one day was a rare opportunity, so I chose the second option.
An uneventful four-hour motorway drive brought me to Flamborough just before 10am. Despite printing detailed directions, I went to the wrong wood at the wrong caravan site and only reached the small wood where the Radde’s Warbler had been reported that morning at nearly 11am. There was no sign of it among the other birds, including Chiffchaff, Firecrest and Yellow-browed Warbler, so I soon cut my losses and headed off to look for the robin.
Reports of a “scrum” and a full car park in our WhatsApp birding group were worrying, but I found a parking space and hobbled down to the gully. I estimated that 50–60 birders were still there. The bird was said to be appearing only briefly every hour or two, matching the description I had found online while planning the twitch the night before: “This is an elusive bird and difficult to spot as it lurks among concealing branches, remaining stationary for considerable periods.”
I stood on the left, where the crowd was only one person deep, giving me a partial view of the gully over people’s shoulders. I later realised why this spot was less crowded: the robin showed best on a mossy trunk beneath a sycamore, hidden from my view. I had hoped birders would move on once they had seen it, but many at the front stayed almost all day, earning the nickname “fence huggers” in our WhatsApp group. Sightings continued from the prime spot throughout the afternoon, but I saw nothing. Late that afternoon, the bird flew briefly along the gully, chased by a European Robin. I was looking away and missed it, leaving me thoroughly despondent.
Around 5pm the crowd was finally thinning out a little when a commotion from the ideal viewing position indicated that the Robbin had been picked up sitting in the gully by someone with a thermal camera. At this point I was incredibly indebted to Dave Viles who offer to let me stand on his small steps from which I finally had a clear view of the Robin! Victory from the jaws of defeat indeed. Many thanks also to Adrian Webb who kindly took a back of the screen shot of the Robin for me while it was sitting in the gully.
Similar in size to the European Robin, the Rufous-tailed Robin has plain greyish-brown upperparts and grey-to-white underparts, with pale circular markings on its heavily mottled throat and breast. Its bright rufous rump and tail contrast with buff flanks, a whitish eye-ring and a distinct buffish cheek stripe. Its bill is brownish-black and its legs pinkish grey. In appearance it very much reminded me of the Verry, a very rare North American thrush, that I saw in the Shetlands a few years back. It breeds in taiga forests across north-eastern Asia to Mongolia and winters in South-East Asia and southern China. It is an extremely rare vagrant to Western Europe with the first European record being as recent as October 2004 on Fair Island in the Shetlands .
As darkness fell around 6pm, I set off on the long motorway journey home. Despite seeing the bird, this was easily my most unpleasant twitch. With so little viewing space, I felt the “fence huggers” were selfish to hold their places after getting good views—and, in some cases, photographs—instead of giving others a chance.
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