Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: Spurn At It's Best!.......Saturday 3rd October 2015.

Monday, 5 October 2015

Spurn At It's Best!.......Saturday 3rd October 2015.

A free day today and determined to catch up with some good birds or find one after being at work all week,i had organised to meet up with Tim for an all day effort around the recording area....and what a day it turned out to be!.
We began in usual fashion,starting at the Bluebell car park and as i waited for Tim to arrive i took several photos of the stunning sky and sunrise at dawn and thought to myself this north easterly wind albeit light,must turn something up.
We began the day by heading up Beacon Lane first,with several Song Thrushes going into the notebook,including a grey eastern type bird and also a hand full of Blackbirds.As we arrived at Appletree,Marcus kindly showed us a posing Merlin that was perched near to his garden and after a short while it decided to take flight and i managed to obtain a few half decent shots as it bombed past,a nice start to the day.
Further on and up to Beacon Ponds and the wetlands and this area provided us with several notable sightings which included a pair of Stonechat,3 Greenshank,Ruff,6 Brent Geese,a hunting Barn Owl and a Spotshank along with some good numbers of roosting waders on the high tide at the wetlands and 6 Little Egret showed well as they had their usual grumpy fall outs as to who was having the best fishing spot.A message broke over the radio that an OBP had been found near Chalk Bank by Marcus on his cycle ride down the point,but we were miles away and it was high tide as well,but it was a good omen.
After the wetlands we decided to head up Easington straight and then down Peter Lane to Sammy's Point and to be fair we covered a lot of ground for little return,with the highlight probably going to a confiding flock of Lesser Redpoll along Humber Lane and 1 Fieldfare and 3 Redwing along the same area.
As we neared Sammy's Point car park,a Kingfisher shot along an adjacent drain,we had heard earlier in the day that 2 Yellow-browed Warbler had been seen here and after entering the second paddock it wasn't long before i had found one of them.At first it was seen flycatching in between Umbellifer stems and long grass before it relocated to a Hawthorn where it just sat for a while as i took a zillion images of it.What a cracking little bird they are and it beggars belief that people take them for granted these days,when you think where this little bird has flown from to reach us...just amazing!.
The remainder of Sammy's was fairly quiet apart from a Chiffchaff and a couple of Goldcrest and we then carried along the Humber shore crossing over to Pancho's Pond seeing 2 Wheatear and a couple of Rockits.
After a chance meeting with John Hewitt and others,all hell broke lose in typical Spurn style as a message came over the radio that a Pied/Black-eared Wheatear had been found at the breach,so we all headed in that direction and we were dropped kindly by John at the Warren.
We walked as fast as we could across the dune and breach and i had forgotten how bad it is walking on sand!!!,we eventually made it to where the bird was with a fairly big crowd already watching it and there he was below us,a cracking male Pied Wheatear.
At first it was being pushed south sadly by the gathering crowd,but after everyone settled down the bird came back and showed very nicely as it caught several insects below us.What a corking bird he was and this individual was my first male after the female several years ago at Reighton near Filey.This bird should be on it's way to East Africa for the winter instead of being blown off course to East Yorkshire,the wonders of bird migration.
As i watched the bird for a little longer before having to leave,Tim had to go and i decided shortly afterwards to do the same.As i was walking away Tim was some way infront and had returned shouting to me that there was a Citrine Wagtail just past where the Wheatear was....bloody hell!.I dashed back to where everyone was and it was on the same piece of beach as the Wheatear and i thought to myself only this can happen at Spurn.
I watched the Wagtail as it sallied after flies,giving some great views of this eastern cracker and it even called several times as well with that striking buzzy call.
Eventually time was getting on and i left the two goodies to walk back to the bluebell,but the day still wasn't over with another Yellow-browed being seen feeding in the saltmarsh vegetation and Couch Grass at the breach as i walked past and another being seen in the Warren bushes with a couple of Goldcrest.
I eventually made it back to the car slightly worse for wear after walking at least 11.5 miles during the day,but what a day it was and i reluctantly made my way home after the best days birding of the autumn so far.