YELLOW-BROWED BONANZA

A rare working sojourn over to the 'birdy' heaven of Norfolk last week had me picking through the remains of the past few days East coast migrant fest. All things that are alien to a North West birder and have us travelling over that great bird highway the M62 over to the 'far' east to places such as Spurn, Flannelboro and East Anglia. With a few hours to spare I headed to the coast just in time to miss yet another seabird bonanza this time off Salthouse...Sabine's Gull, Pom Skua and Black throated Diver all past at high tide (worth noting as some of Norfolk's finest were on show)...

still unperturbed I decided to go and look for my own birds (The Punks would be proud of me) and I headed to the not so migrant hot spot of Friar's Hill, Blakeney. A place that always looks awesome but then again you never hear much about it.
A female Redstart got the birding off to a great start but I realised after 30 mins of searching that that would be the highlight. A brown streaky jobby in a scrubby thicket had me thinking off PG Tips or my bogey bird Lance...

but na it was only one of the local Hedge Accentors stretching...no white tips to the tail note.

One last chance before the sun did one and I nipped along the coast to the site of Norfolk's last mega...the Rufous-tailed Robin at Warham Greens. Unfortunately it had gone but I did see another Eastern vagrant in the shape of a very quiet and skulking Yellow-browed Warbler.

aren't they just great and to make life even harder the little bugger never called once.

Not a bird I know but one couldn't resist and what a cracker...Small Copper in September!

TTFN

MAGNOLIA ITS JUST UN-FAIR

Sometimes you should be careful what you wish for, I did and put it on my blog. Then bang one turns up but unfortunately in one of the most inaccessible places to get to (unless you have a big wad of dosh) bloody unFair Isle. One rather gripping Magnolia Warbler has just been found today 23rd Sept that's nearly 31 years to the day the last one and first for the UK turned up on St.Agnes.
Just maybe if it keeps on migrating South it will arrive on Scilly by about the 14th of October, now that would be nice.

SANDPIPER ON THE WIZZAL

After the plethora of Yanky waders dumped on us by hurricane Leslie it was great that Cheshire got a piece of the cake. Unfortunately Cheshire's Yanky wader has proved to be some what of an ID nightmare...
 Semipalmated Sandpiper or Western Sandpiper the ornithological camps are split.
Having only seen the bird on the distant tide line I'm not going to speculate which camp I should be in but if I had to chose then its Semi-P for me.(year tick by any chance Pod?)
With the little fecker almost that far away it was just off the coast of the Isle of Man here's a photo of one I ticked at Sutton Bingham Res, Somerset way back in October 1982 (hitched all the way, slept in a bus shelter and then on to Scilly...those were the days)...

and yes I actually took the photo with my Pentax ME Super with a 500mm Sigma mirror lens on film!!

Still a great find (the Cheshire jobby) by Mr Allan Conlin hope the ID gets sorted soon.
Cheshire Life List tick no.269 which ever.


TTFN

SPAR TREBLE-TASTIC

The not so local local convenience store had a nice treble lined up, one RED one BLACK and a CROMWELL who could resist ? not me! get in there.

TTFN

YANKS IN THE POST ?

Hurricane Leslie has so far only delivered a RED-EYED VIREO to the Shetlands and Iceland where its sort of made 'landfall' hasn't had a sausage so far. Looks like the predictions of our French correspondent will not be coming to fruition unfortunately. In the year of the grip back surely please there's something in the US Mail for us long suffering 'old timers' or the up and coming techno twitchers will soon be overtaking us.
If and its always a big if there's a birding god up there can we have the following...

MAGNOLIA WARBLER
WOOD THRUSH
BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO
PURPLE MARTIN
OVENBIRD oh yes!
and a BLACK THROATED BLUE WARBLER cos their awesome

all down in the West Country with Scilly getting a nice quota from the 13th October...cheers!
the prayer mats out.

TTFN

ESSEX INSECTS

This week I've been down in deepest Essex rummaging about some 'posh' farmland attempting to ID trees, find badgers and look for bat roosts all in the name of ecology. Whilst rummaging I found this big hairy grub munching away on a leaf. I've no idea what it is (apart from the caterpillar bit) anybody know what flavour it is?

On the same farm there was this beauty of a dragonfly a Migrant Hawker (should be called Common Hawker me thinks cos their everywhere). Having reduce the file size and re-jigged bits its all gone blurred...bummer!

Bird wise I just had to call in at Rainham (Fortknox) RSPB Reserve and whap on the sometimes obliging sometimes not Baillon's Crake that's been added to many a list over the past week. Not that I needed it of course the famous Sunderland one was first on the UK List for Pod way back in May 1989...Jesus!! I'm Old School. The year of the grip back continues.....

TTFN

INNER MARSH SANDPIPER

After many a dip (2012 Year List wise) I finally caught up with this most 'common' of Yanky waders on the bit of mud formerly known as IMF cos that's where I videoed it. Badly yes! but a records a record as Cliff Richard used to say. Pectoral Sandpiper nice!
Surely after all the years practice you'd think I'd have this craft mastered, well no! no way I'm sometimes like a blindman in SpecSavers...not a hope in hell! still here's some for record purposes only video just incase those List Police are on to me...

This little beauty brings up the 250 a milestone in any-ones book, true its still a long way off 300 and miles away from 350 but not far behind the leading pack (minus Dan the Man of course) and slightly ahead of those 'Flashers' down near Middlewich....roll on Scilly!!

TTFN