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