27th OCTOBER

GREEN HERON

Well, a little bit of twitching never hurt anyone i guess! Went down to Kent today for a look at the Green Heron. What a spectacular bird! Very close views allowing great digiscoping oppurtunities.

On the way home I stopped in at Rainham Marshes to see if could find any of the party of three or more Serins that have been around for the last week or so.
I had brief views of one at the west end of the seawall by the landfill site. On the way back to the centre I found this pristine adult Yellow-legged Gull on the foreshore.

As I reached the centre I suddenly noticed an immature Serin perched on the low fence right in front of me barely 40 feet away! It gave great views to a small group of us for about 45 minutes, often flying about and calling. A very evocative sound!

SCILLY 4TH-18TH OCTOBER

Two weeks on St.Agnes with Laurence Pitcher, Lee Amery, Phil Saunders and Peter Brash. What a trip! A vintage October for Scillies this year, and much of it focussed on St.Agnes, thanks to the bird finding skills of Lee (Blackpoll Warbler and Red-eyed Vireo) and Graham Gordon, who is currently living on the island (Blyth's Reed Warbler and Grey-cheeked Thrush).

Highlights:

Sociable Plover
Blackpoll Warbler
Red-eyed Vireo (2)
Grey-cheeked Thrush
Blyth's Reed Warbler
American Golden Plover
Short-toed Lark
Red-breasted Flycatcher
Yellow-browed Warbler
Dotterel
Wryneck
Lapland Bunting
Grey Phalarope
Jack Snipe

FLAMBOROUGH 16TH-19TH SEPTEMBER

As you can tell I'm not the most dilligent of bloggers! Anyway, here are few belated posts to bring it all up to date.

Flamborough 16th-19th September

A short trip to Flamborough with Mark Pearson and Laurence Pitcher coincided with the tail end of one of the most spectacular falls of Scandanavian drift migrants to hit the East coast for many a year. This was my first proper experience of a classic East coast fall so it was very special indeed. Redstarts in every hedge (up to 60 counted on the 16th), double figure counts of Pied Flycatchers, Whinchats all over the place, great stuff!
On the 16th a cracking male Red-breasted Flycatcher was still present from couple of days previously . Mark also found a Yellow-browed Warbler this day and a Wryneck was present.
On the 17th a Great Snipe was found at nearby Speeton. We had front row seats at the organised flush at 2pm and excellent views were obtained of the bird in flight on two occasions. This twitch was very well organised by the Flamborough regulars, and disturbance of the bird was kept to a minimum. Apparantly it all degenerated into chaos later on as birders decided to help themselves to the bird, which was on private land. Pretty irresponsible really, especially considering the sensitivity of the access issue in the area.

Highlights:

Great Snipe
Red-breasted Flycatcher
Yellow-browed Warbler
Wryneck
The numbers of commoner migrants around ie;
Pied Flycatcher 12+
Redstart 60+
Wheatear 40+
Whinchat 10+
Spotted Fly 5

Merlin
Arctic Skua