I began,as usual,by parking at East Halton Skitter for first light and in usual fashion got all my gear together for a full day around the patch,or so that was the plan anyway.
The tide was rising and little was on show in the Haven as i passed by,but as i turned the corner towards Winter's Pond,an adult male Marsh Harrier hunted the fields here and 6 Roe Deer browsed the rough,grassy field edge.
A couple of year ticks in the form of my first local Oystercatcher of the year and the not so inspiring sighting of 2 Canada Geese flying east,pretty much summed up my visit so far.
As i neared Winter's Pond,i could hear a couple of snatches of a scratchy,sylvia like song from the ditch/hedge next to me,but it just didn't register at first,until i stepped off the bank top so i could hear it properly.Then it clicked,i think it's a Bluethroat,i said to myself,but it couldn't be could it?,on my patch at East halton,at this point i was getting a bit excited to be fair.I coolly took my phone out of my pocket,opened up the Collins Birdguide App. and gave a quick blast of White-spotted Bluethroat song,which had the desired affect,as the beautiful culprit duly popped up into the hedge flashing those striking chestnut tail bases at me and promptly turned around to show me his blue gorget and white spot before dropping back down out of sight.I just froze in disbelief at what i had just seen,before the euphoria and buzz of finding a cracking bird took hold of me.
I spent the next 5 or 10 minutes trying to inform as many people as was possible and put the news out on RBA.
All the song from the bird had been while the sun was out and now it had gone in he had gone quiet,then the sun came back out and he began to sing just as Chaz Adland arrived.
Unfortunately there was a male Cetti's Warbler singing in the same ditch now and as Chaz and myself watched the Bluethroat flew out of the ditch into an adjacent hedgerow,obviously not being impressed by the noisy male Cettis singing in his ear,before he dropped onto the ground.Some more brief views of him on the deck in amongst vegetation,before he sang in the open and disappeared again into the hedge.
This was the scenario for the rest of the 4 hours or so i spent watching this little cracker,along with a few other birders who managed to twitch this first record for my patch.
The previous few days and following few days,saw other White-spotted Bluethroats being seen in Suffolk,Northumberland and Yorkshire,but it certainly wasn't on my radar for the patch,but just goes to show what can turn up.
The White spotted form(Luscinia svecica cyanecula)spends the winter in Africa and breeds as close as Holland to the UK,with the birds arriving on their near continent breeding grounds as early as the first week in April,making it a pretty early rare migrant over here and ties in nicely with this occurrance.This is the first sighting of a White-spotted bird for myself,with me finding and seeing several birds of the Red-spotted form in the past.
Back to the patch and after all the excitement of the star bird,i carried on through the remainder of Winter's adding my first Chiffchaff and calling Water Rail of the year in the process.
I turned the corner and walked along Skitter Road past Red House Wood where a pair of Common Buzzard showed nicely and further along at Grange Farm,another patch year tick in the form of a Jay kept things ticking over nicely.
As i had lost time spent with the star bird,i decided to head home after completing the square,but added 6 species today to the patch year list and no doubt some bonus points to my #Patchwatch2018 year list,what a great day out locally!.
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| The Big Twitch. |
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| Record Shot,First Thing Of The Bluethroat Singing. |
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| Not Easy To Photo At The Best Of Times,But You Can Just About Make Him Out. |
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