Finding an Arctic Warbler

I might have complained about the lack of migrant birds on Sunday, especially considering the north-easterly winds, but today I could have nothing to complain about. The north-easterlies continued through Monday and Tuesday and combined with some heavy fog have brought about a massive fall of birds (mainly thrushes, Robins and finches) on the coast. After hearing about so many birds turning up I decided enough was enough and took the rest of the week off to go birding.

Today I headed up to north Norfolk to bird the coastal path between Brancaster Staithe and Brancaster Harbour. I arrived just after dawn to be greeted by a car park full of Redwings, Fieldfare, Song Thrushes and Blackbirds. I walked west towards Brancaster flushing hundreds of thrushes, including lots of Ring Ouzels (at least 20 throughout the morning) and lots of Robins. I stopped at a narrow strand of large willow trees where there was a Chiffchaff and a Common Redstart. Branodunum, the Roman Fort just east of Brancaster was covered in thrushes which flew into the neighbouring hedges when disturbed. I headed back to Brancaster Staithe and stopped to look at a few birds that were flitting around at the top of the large willow trees where I'd seen the Chiffchaff and Redstart earlier. A couple of Goldcrest and a Phyloscopus warbler, which I presumed would be the Chiffchaff, but it wasn't a Chiffchaff - it wasn't a Chiffchaff at all.....

The warbler had a whopping white supercillum and a long (for a warbler) orange bill. It was silvery white underneath and very green above. A massive rush of adrenalin burst into my body as I knew that this was something good. I presumed just on the lateness of the season that it wasn't going to be a Greenish Warbler and anyway, it couldn't be with a super' and bill like that. I frantically tried to get a better view of the bird and double-check it had a wing bar and any markings on the tertials and crown. It was being a real bastard - keeping high up at the back of the tree and moving around a lot. Every time I got a good view of it, it was just the underside. Finally I managed to see that it had a good single wingbar, no crown-stripe and white on the vent. I was fairly sure that it was an Arctic Warbler and after trying to get good views of it, the bird started calling - a short, sharp, metallic "Zzzrip". In fact it called non-stop for about one-and-a-half minutes. I had the Hannu Jannes Arctic Warbler call on my phone and double-checked the call (it's been a few years since I heard Arctic Warbler call). I had the bird calling and the call on my phone going at exactly the same time - stereo! The call matched exactly! I immediately phoned the news out to RBA and within half an hour or so a small crowed had assembled and were watching the bird. It did come a bit lower and showed well on occasions, but it was fairly hard to see most of the time.

I checked out Burnham Deepdale after that. Lots of thrushes again, but nothing rare and then finished the day off with the Red-flanked Bluetail at Stiffkey. A fitting end to such an exciting day.

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staith

Red-flanked Bluetail, Stiffkey

Red-flanked Bluetail, Stiffkey

Red-flanked Bluetail, Stiffkey

Red-flanked Bluetail, Stiffkey

Thanks to everyone who sent me photos that they'd taken of the Arctic Warbler. Here are their photos:

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©John Murray

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©John Murray

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©John Murray

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©John Murray

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©Dave Kelsall

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©James Lowen

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©James Lowen

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©Steve Lawton

Arctic Warbler, Brancaster Staithe ©Steve Lawton

Easterlies produced some good seabirds, but migrants remain sparse

A high pressure, giving way to a low pressure system has brought some nice easterly winds to east Norfolk.

Surface Pressure Chart for 23 Sept 2012

I've been out to the coast over the weekend in the hope to find something that equaled Holme's good haul of migrants (Barred + Yellow-browed Warblers and RBF), but the bushes of east Norfolk remain empty of migrants, bar the occasional Blackcap and Chiffchaff. Seawatching, something I don't tend to do a lot of in east Norfolk, has been pretty good though. There's been a good southerly passage of Gannets all weekend as well as lots of Red-throated Divers moving south. An hours seawatching from Waxham on Saturday evening provided a nice Grey Phalarope, feeding for a while offshore before moving off north. After that I headed down to Nelson Head, making use of the lovely light to snap a few Grey Seals and Sanderling (below).
Finding very little (nothing!) in the Nelson Head area this morning (Sunday) I headed back to Waxham to do a couple hours of seawatching. Although the actual number of birds wasn't great, the variety was. Within 40 minutes of obs., I'd seen 4 species of skua. A couple of Bonxies moved south followed by a lovely sub-adult (second-summer I think) pale phase Pom Skua, which spent a few minutes loafing around close inshore before moving off north. It was an interesting looking bird, with a pretty good dark cap, quite a bit of barring down the flanks and on the chest (forming a strong breast band) and a pale ginger nape. About 10 minutes later a dark juvenile Long-tailed Skua flew south. It was so close inshore that almost missed it, just catching it fly through the bottom of my scope field of view. Long-tailed Skua is one of those birds that when you see a skua sp and wonder "is it, isn't it", then it's almost certainly an Arctic Skua. When you see a Long-tail, there's not really much confusion. And to top everything off, a couple of Arctic Skuas flew north, pursuing some Sandwich Terns.

Grey Seals, Nelson Head, Norfolk

Grey Seals, Nelson Head, Norfolk

Grey Seals, Nelson Head, Norfolk

Sanderling, Nelson Head, Norfolk

Sanderling, Nelson Head, Norfolk

Late May Bank Holiday Weekend - what a let down!

It was all looking great for the weekend - easterly winds with fronts moving up from the continent bringing rain to ground those tired migrants. In reality it turned out to be as dull as the water flooding through the ditches from the opening heavens above. The highlight of the weekend was actually found in raptors. At Cley I witnessed a female Marsh Harrier take an adult Black-tailed Godwit. It grabbed hold of it on Simonds Scrape and carried it off to devour in the reedbeds. Also a rather close Barn Owl hunted close to the road at Lessingham (see below) at 10am in the morning.
Migrant-wise, a couple of Spotted Flycatchers and Lesser Whitethroats were all I managed to muster up.