Siberian Accentor at Easington, East Yorkshire

Some of you may have read about this bird in the press. Never seen before in the U.K., up until a few weeks ago when one turned up on Shetland. That particular bird was out of my league, the serious twitchers went for it and for a couple of days it entertained. It then disappeared. For those people that saw the bird feelings of elation ensued, imagining that they had seen a once in a lifetime bird. Those feelings changed somewhat a week ago when another turned up on the East Yorkshire coast near Spurn point at the village of Easington. A massive twitch ensued, thousands of birders queued to get a glimpse of this rare bird from the East. Due to other commitments, I couldn't go and so had to put up with images all over the internet of this cousin of 'our' common Dunnock and people who say that they aren't twitchers and can't abide twitching, actually twitching.

Tuesday dawned wet and miserable. One customer cancelled me due to the weather, then another. Suddenly a day had opened up and the bird was still present, I had to go for it. My friend and usual partner in crime Chris Orders was unfortunately unavailable and so I rang anther friend Mike Weedon, who agreed to accompany me, even though he had already been on Saturday, such was the draw of this 'painted' Dunnock. We made good time, arriving at lunch time and made our way to the birds' haunt. Now, up until that afternoon the bird had been frequenting an old school car park, with an open vista and unobstructed views, but of course when I turned up the bird had moved. Instead of clear views over a chain link fence the bird had to be watched through a rather tall double metal fence with inch square holes in between thick wire, not ideal. 'Sibby' was seen, however and showed very well, constantly on the move and more often obscured by weeds and sycamore saplings than not.

As of today this particular Siberian Accentor seems to have moved on, but the U.K. now has at least 6 of these birds on its' record books and more are piling up on the not so distant continent. So, if you see an odd looking Dunnock in your garden, particularly if you live in the East of the country, you never know, it just could be one these birds.

Razorbill at Bempton Cliffs RSPB

Adult Gannets, Bempton Cliffs RSPB

Gannets in flight, Bempton Cliffs RSPB

This is the first of a few posts showing the largest breeding seabird of the U.K., the (Northern) Gannet. The above photos show 3rd calendar year birds, different from the adult and 4th year birds by way of predominant black on the wings, the adult is mostly white with black tips and the 4th year have the odd black secondary feathers. A huge bird with a 1.7-1.9 metre wingspan, a huge bill and a piercing blue eye ring and when seen well cannot be mistaken for any other species, oh, and my Dads' favourite!

Puffin at Bempton Cliffs RSPB

Everyone loves a Puffin!

Fulmar at Bempton Cliffs RSPB

Masked Shrike at Kilnsea

This last week has been a bit twitchy for me. An extremely rare bird was reported last Saturday (20th), a third record for the U.K. in the shape of a Masked Shrike. This bird is normally found in North East Greece, West and South Turkey and Southern Israel, but had found itself in the small hamlet of Kilnsea in East Yorkshire, close to the Spurn peninsula. Everybody went as soon as they possibly could, Sunday the 21st seemed to be the most popular day and over the week the reports and the photos kept appearing and I was well and truly gripped with tales of the bird showing down to 30 ft, but I just didn't have any time to make the 3 hour one way trip. That was until Sunday just gone. I had some very rare free time and so managed to talk Lisa into accompanying me on this twitch.

The long journey was uneventful and we arrived at Kilnsea and managed to grab the last parking space, dodging past numerous birders on their way to the shrikes haunt. The bird had moved field during the morning and so we followed the hoards to this new site. The bird was seen straight away perched in a very distant hedgerow, at least 400 m away, but the white blob was very obvious against the dark of the hawthorn hedge. The scope views were excellent, the bird always on the move, hunting craneflies and grasshoppers. It was most certainly not being as accommodating as the previous week and never coming very close and also disappearing over the other side of the hedge frequently. The closest it ever came during our 6 hour vigil was about 200 m when I managed to get some truly awful record shots, which have been heavily cropped and are below.

The twitch was then shattered by the appearance of some locals who started to ride a miniature motorbike around the field, going right up to the hedge in question and unsurprisingly spooking the shrike which promptly disappeared. Grumblings were made, but we discovered that these locals had permission to be in the field, something that we had not (unbeknown to most of us there). Lisa and I left at this point and had a very pleasant meander around the vicinity until we thought that we had better start making a start at the 3 hour return trip.

As I have stated, this is only the third time that a Masked Shrike has been recorded in this country. They have all been juvenile/first-winter birds, with the first being at Kilrenny in Fife for 17 days in Oct 2004 and the second being a one day wonder on St.Mary's on Scilly in Nov 2006.

A great bird and a very welcome 'tick'.

European Roller

This Roller (pronounced like polar) has been present in east Yorkshire for about a week now and shows no signs of moving on. It is feeding well, clearing the fields of leather-jackets and putting on a good show for the assembled masses.

A Jackdaw sized, heavily-built bird, with electric blue plumage and a brown back, quite unmistakeable. A bird that breeds in continental Europe, from Iberia to Turkey, with some populations in coastal north-west Africa. Another sub-species breeds from Iraq, Kazakhstan to Pakistan and western China. They winter in sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1664 there have been around 300 records in Great Britain, but they remain a fairly rare bird with a few turning up annually, another `tick` in my book.

A couple of videos are below, just showing the bird flying and feeding. The site is next to a main road, so there is a bit of traffic noise, I hope this doesn`t detract from the bird.

Below are some attempts at flight shots! The bird was just `asking` to be photographed in this way, but, whereas the boys with the 20 grand lenses just rattled off shots 10 to the dozen, all pin sharp, my humble efforts leave a lot to be desired! The camera I use for digiscoping just can`t seem to cope with moving wings, I can`t seem to get the shutter speed fast enough!

Hopefully, although the wings are nice and blurred, they give you an idea of the wing pattern.