East Coast 'date'

First of all, can I only apologise for the photos as they are video grabs from my phone!

On Sunday I took Danni (the girlfriend if you didn't know!) across to Yorkshire to try and pick her up some new species.

We started off at Wykeham Forest raptor viewpoint to look for Honey Buzzards. It's proving a bit of a nemesis of ours now though as we've already tried multiple times this year with no success, with the exception of the day I went back to 'our site' on my own and saw a Honey in the same bins view as an Osprey! Typical!
The weather was far from favourable with light drizzle showers every so often and reasonable wind and cloud cover. It was fairly warm though, so we gave it a go anyway. With several Common Buzzards and Kestrels up, we were kept occupied and things got a bit more exciting when I picked up a Goshawk which seemed to hang/hover in the wind which was an interesting behaviour I'd never seen before. We decided to give up and head to Bempton Cliffs as Danni had never seen Puffin.

Bempton is pretty special to me as this is where I joined the RSPB back in 1998 when I was just 6. As we approached the cliffs, we got our first waft of seabird colony smell which takes me back to all the fantastic times I've had in colonies such as Puffin Island and Hornoya in Norway etc. Superb!
We had fantastic views of about 10 close in Puffins and about 50-75 birds flying around and landing on distant cliffs. It was great seeing Gannets flying around at all ages, including fantastic 1st summers looking very striking with dark plumage and white head. A single 'Bridled' Guillemot was nice to see too and again took me back to Hornoya spending time with the hyperborea race that were almost all Bridled. My highlight however, as is often the case were Kittiwakes. They're so smart and that striking red inside of mouth is just so amazing.

After we had our fill and Danni's cheeks were hurting from smiling at Puffins so much, we thought we'd try Wykeham Forest again as the weather was improving. When we arrived we instantly had a Common Buzzard circling with a very impressive female Goshawk. The views were great and really prolonged. This bird also hovered on the wind which made tracking it in the scope remarkably easy as it just didn't move! Sadly Honey Bs didn't show all day, so we decided to head home via Pennington Flash looking for Willow Tits late afternoon....The tables were almost empty which made it even more difficult to see what have been increasingly more difficult to see of late. Aside from a group of 9 Stock Doves and a couple of Bullfinch, the feeders were pretty quiet. Bunting Hide has always been and always will be one of my favourite hides though, so enjoyable nonetheless.

A rather lovely day out despite missing a couple of targets as I got to visit some of my all time favourite birding spots with my girlfriend. Brilliant :)

Jonnie's leaving do at Spurn

 I spent the weekend at Spurn after heading to the South Coast for a leaving do for Jonnie who has now moved to Varanger! We started off early on eating toast and tea in the Warren when a muffled message over the walkytalky sounded like an interesting gull at Beacon Ponds. A quick repeat revealed 'Laughing Gull on the Wetlands'!! Action stations as we all dived into cars half asleep and got there as fast at possible. As we arrived at Kilnsea car park, we ran and the avocets were going mad. We caught sight of a gull in flight and lifted our bins. It had a jet black head, blood red bill and lesser black-back dark upperwings and broad white trailing edge! A first for Spurn and my third ever. Superb
After the adrenaline wore off, we realised we were still shattered (I had driven 800 miles the previous day!). After a while, I decided to walk to the point on my own and the best I could muster was a Sedge Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat. Meanwhile the rest of the NGBs were at Sammy's and found a Marsh Warbler! I carried on working the point as if there was something at Sammy's then there's no reason that the point would be any different....I failed, so meandered slowly back to the Warren.
I took Matt, Jonnie and Twiggy back to Sammy's and we spent a long while enjoying the fantastic Marsh Warbler singing away and occasionally showing well.
Relaxing with a cup of tea at the Warren, a Bee Eater came on the radio flying south over Sammy's. We all went up to Numpties with the hope it would fly over. It was seen over the wetlands, church field and the triangle. We managed to pick it up in the scope and very distantly through bins, before it u-turned and seemed to head back to Church Field. We thought we'd go and try and twitch it (not having much hope it'd stick around) and as we drove past church field, it was sat on the wires right above our heads! It quickly flew into the field and began flycatching and landed on the surrounding wires.
An assembled crowd enjoying superb views for almost an hour as it sat in the sun, caught bees and called away. What a phenomenal bird and a real joy to watch.
Later in the afternoon, we managed to catch the Marsh Warbler (with schedule 1 license at hand of course) which was fantastic to see. Not only because it's only my second I've seen in the UK and one of my favourite species, but because of all the Marsh Warblers we caught in Sweden, I was having a morning off when we caught a single adult, so this was very educational.

 Sunday morning was really quiet, but I got to handle a Sparrowhawk (which had previously been caught at Mig Fest the previous autumn.) I have been ringing for four years and somehow managed to avoid Sparrowhawks all that time. It was a juvenile male with dropped and regrowing inner two primaries. Wonderful birds. A great end to a great weekend.

South Coast Megas

 Hudsonian Whimbrel...honest

 Greater Yellowlegs

 Greater Yellowlegs

I went down to the South coast with Liam as a combination of the long-staying Greater Yellowlegs at Titchfield Haven and Hudsonian Whimbrel (found by NGB George Kinnard) at Pagham Harbour were just too much to ignore.
We started at Pagham early doors, but we arrived just before high tide, so there was no sign of the Whimbrel as it was presumably in the long vegetation roosting. We then decided to try Titchfield whilst the tide went over. As it was on the flood viewable from public footpaths, we were able to get access before the reserve opened at 9am (and closed at 5pm) and avoided the £4 entrance fee (Thanks Amy for the gen). After a bit of annoyance from the bird walking out of view just before we got scopes onto it, we relocated and got fantastic views of what was a superb wader. In photos it really didn't look too impressive and I couldn't really pluck up the interest to go and see it, but I am really glad I did. In full summer plumage, it was a very smart looking bird and with slight primary projection, long bill, large size and overall lankiness, it was really educational to separate from Lesser Yellowlegs.
As we were onsite, news came through that the Whimbrel had been found again, so back we went. Sadly, that sighting was very brief and it landed in a creek and out of view almost straight away. We gave it an hour or so waiting and hoping it would move out of a creek, but eventually we gave up hope and decided that we'd utilise the rest of the day. Not ten minutes down the road, news came through again that it had been seen just after we'd left! Sod's law really!
I was getting annoyed by this bird now, but it would've been mad not to return. We took one scope with us and basically ran all the way to the assembled crowd. It had just flown, so we followed the stampeed of twitchers and got onto the two Whimbrels they were watching. I was confused as they looked identical and couldn't see the striking pale face and broad black striping on the face that seemed so obvious in photos. These were both Eurasian Whimbrels, I was sure of it. We soon got onto a third bird and this one looked so much more different. It was obviously rufous in tone, the pale on the face was almost white, the crown stripe was very broad and the bill seemed almost curlew length. It started preening and revealed a strongly barred rump with no white at all. Later on it flapped and revealed a similarly ginger banded underwing. This was the bird! So striking and fantastic to compare with the Eurasian Whimbrels. What a relief to see, but boy did it take some effort to see!
Due to lots of traffic problems, I was only able to get to one more site during the day and that was the Melodious Warbler that has taken up territory at Marsh Lane in Warwickshire. The bird was extremely vocal and it was incredible to hear how rushed it was. It did a lot of mimicking, but seemed as though it was trying to fit in as many impressions as possible! Quite remarkable. The mid-ranged primary projection, almost Marsh Warbler-like jizz to the face and warm green-brown and yellow plumage were easily noted. A nice bird indeed and one I've wanted to see for a while now.

 Melodious Warbler