Autumn Comes early at Spurn

With some favorable weather over the last couple of days and a few scarce migrants turning up on the East Coast, I set off for Spurn with high hopes this morning.

I arrived before 6 and checked out canal scrape first.A rather keen westerly was blowing -not exactly conducive for migrant birds, as such there was nothing doing there.

Next stop was canal bushes there was only the odd whitethroat and not much else. I heard a report of a redstart at Bluebell car park so headed down there and it was here that there seemed to be a bit more activity. The redstart showed well followed very quickly by a flighty wood warbler, whinchat and yellow wagtail were also in the car park and a lesser whitethroat in the same bush as the redstart as well as willow warblers and lots of juvenile goldfinches.

I went down Beacon Lane to check for the previous days icterine warbler-it didn't show but a flyby peregrine was nice.

I went back to the car park and the wood warbler showed again, just at the same time one was called out from Kilnsea Caravan site.

i went to have a look and this one showed very well at times in the poplar trees in the main entrance.

It was while waiting for the wood warbler that an icterine warbler popped out and again showed well at times.This was accompanied by a pied flycatcher.

News of a barred warbler on the canal crackled over the airwaves so I went over to check it out and got a brief distant view.

I missed the wryneck by a couple of minutes so retraced my steps, the barred warbler didn't show again so I went for some dinner.

Nothing was doing in the afternoon so I made my way home.

Another fantastic trip to the East Coasts premier birding venue.

The Black Stork at Spurn

I've been a few times to see the black stork at Spurn-first night was Tuesday when it was first seen, then Thursday when it spent all night in the middle of well field, then last night when it performed very well.

It was news of a white winged black tern that had me heading out for Spurn around tea-time yesterday, however that had disappeared but a pectoral sandpiper turned up in its place.

I moved on to see the black stork and whilst waiting a nice barn owl flew by just to liven things up.

All in all not a bad night.

Sabines Gull

having never seen a sabines gull before news of a showy individual at an inland flash near Manchester proved rather tempting.

Prompted by a tweet from Flamborough birder Andy Hood I set off early on Saturday morning.

The drive over was pretty uneventful low cloud eventually giving way to glorious sunshine.

After parking up I had a quick look at one of the maps-I knew I had to be near Horrocks hide, as it turned out it was the one nearest the car park only a hundred yard walk.

I saw a small group of photographers and birders focussing on something close to the bank-surely this could not be it?

Upon closer inspection it was! a sabines gull not more than 10ft from the bank!

I got some shots of it low down in the water at firs,then some in sunshine and after that it performed magnificently flying by at head height, coming occasionally to bread and then feeding just off shore on tiny insects.

After a couple of hours I was on the way back.

A stunning rare bird and the photos don't do it justice.