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.