Lesser Yellowlegs

A very showy and tame individual.

Isabelline Wheatear

When ever we visit Spurn we always seem to have a grand day out, there is always something to see.  The Isabelline Wheatear performed well, as did the Siberian Stonechat that was only a few meters away.  A visit down to Sammy's later in the day produced two nice Ring Ouzel as well as a tail-less ground dwelling Lesser Whitethroat that was very tame showing features of the eastern form blythi.

Siberian Accentor 2

Have finally had chance to process a few more photos of the Siberian Accentor now that things have quietened down a little after all the excitement from last week.  The car is now in for repair after the bump just 7 miles from reaching Easington where the Accentor was.

Wayne has also uploaded to Strava the ride home from work after leaving early to twitch the Accentor.  For those of you not familiar with Strava I will try and explain what it is and how addictive it is.  It is a program for cyclists which through GPS records a number of stats such as distance travelled, average speed and time taken which you upload to the web.  Cyclists also create segments on Strava which are everywhere and on his 5 mile ride home from work there are several of these segments which as he passes in and out of them his time is recorded.  These stats are then uploaded on to Strava and are entered into league tables for each segment so as you can imagine it is great fun trying to beat your personal best times as well as others.  Well on this particular day racing home to go for the Accentor he thrashed his previous best time for one of the segments and was placed second in the league table and was only 2 seconds behind the leader.

A few more of the Red-flanked Bluetail

Couldn't resist posting a few more photos of the Bluetail, a stunning bird.

Red-flanked Bluetail

The Bluetail on the Lincs coast performed well today in the afternoon sunshine.

Siberian Accentor, Easington, East Yorks

You would think that birding would be a nice relaxing hobby and most of the time it is but when news breaks of a Siberian Accentor at Spurn Point just 45 miles away and your stuck at work then it can be all but relaxing.  Fortunately it was still present the next day and an early departure from work saw us on the road late morning but with only 7 miles to go we had an incident where a car reversed out into the road and hit us delaying us further.  Stress levels were now running very high but we eventually made it to Easington and after a little wait the bird showed down to a few feet.

Olive-backed Pipit 2

A few more of the pipit as well as some other highlights from a great day at Spurn.

 Red-breasted Flycatcher

Fieldfare

Olive-backed Pipit

It was decided a visit to Spurn Point was in order to catch up with a number of scarce migrants as well as being in position just in case the reported Black-browed Albatross from the North Norfolk coast the day before decided to move north.  Spurn never fails to deliver with good numbers of common migrants such as Chiffchaff, Goldcrest and Robins with a number of scarce migrants mixed in such as Pallas's & Yellow-browed Warblers, Red-breasted Flycatchers and Olive-backed Pipit.

The Olive-backed Pipit at Easington Gas Terminal performed well showing down to a few feet, in fact too close at times to focus the scope on.  Digiscoping proved difficult though as the bird was very active, the light challenging and the bird was on the other side of a wired fence but a night sorting through 2000 photos produced one or two nice images.