American Goldie etc......Sunday 01.11.2015.

With the outside chance of some good birds and hoping the previous days Pallas's Warbler may still be around,i headed over to the Spurn area again today.
 The journey over was hampered in places by thick fog,but as it became light and i neared my destination for the day,it thinned.
 The previous day there had been a couple of Pallid Swifts seen further north at Flamborough and in County Durham,so along with a few others including Tim,a vigil at numpties was the order of the day.
 The condition were not that ideal really for Vis Migging,with still conditions,but we still managed some good numbers of Siskin and Skylark.The highlights from the watch included 2 Velvet Scoter which flew south and singles of both Swallow and House Martin which also followed the Scoters south.
 As it neared lunch time i said my goodbyes to the lads and ambled back to the car at the Bluebell seeing a couple of male Stonechat and Chiffies along the way.
 After a very welcome pack up i decided to walk up Beacon Lane and head up to Beacon Ponds and the Wetlands.The walk up Beacon Lane was fairly quiet apart from a couple of Chiffchaff and a hand full of Blackbirds and Redwing,but as i neared the northern end,the welcome sight of a hunting Short-eared Owl was nice to see.
 I watched the owl as it hunted and it eventually caught a vole which it quickly devoured,perhaps it was a new migrant in as there has been quite an arrival along the east coast of this cracking asio.
 After a chance meeting with Dave and Sarah Aitken,we watched the Juvenile American-golden Plover at distance to start with on the Wetlands with its adopted Lapwing flock,but when the flock was flushed by an unseen predator the goldie left the flock,flew straight over our heads calling and settled on Beacon Ponds.
 We watched it for some time as it stood giving fairly nice views through the scope,the best of which i had enjoyed yet.As it was staying put i left Dave and Sarah and walked around to the other side of the ponds,when the bird again flew,but this time onto the beach.Over the next hour and a half i enjoyed some cracking views of this super bird along with Spurn regulars Ian Smith and Rich Swales.
 So all in all it didn't turn out to be such a bad day after all and with the American-goldie showing so well,i had forgotten all about Pallid Swifts....maybe next time.

Sunrise taken from near the Bluebell. 

The seawatching hut and warren heligoland trap.

Wood Pigeon,Warren bushes.

Male Reed Bunting,Canal bushes.

Juvenile American-golden Plover,Long Bank.

Juvenile American-golden Plover.

Juvenile American-golden Plover.

Juvenile American-golden Plover.

Juvenile American-golden Plover,note the only area of golden spangling was on the rump,compared to European-golden Plover and those distinct grey underwings and fine scalloping along the flanks.