cliftonbirding: A Spring day at Spurn

Monday, 22 April 2013

A Spring day at Spurn

Out with Mark yesterday, we opted to do Spurn and although it was fairly quiet we had a good day picking up a few year ticks along the way the first being several Whimbrel over the Kilnsea Wetlands as we arrived and a Lesser Whitethroat near the Riverside Hotel, first one of the year for Spurn too. We checked out the bushes by the Bluebell Caravan Park next where a Firecrest had been seen earlier but we couldn’t find that so we carried on round the Triangle eventually ending up in the Canal Scrape Hide where several Wagtails were feeding including a White and a couple of Yellows, one of these was an interesting bird it looked good for a Blue Headed apart from it having a green cap, it caused a bit of a debate some thinking it was a moulting bird others a hybrid type. After a bit of lunch we headed back out to the Kilnsea Wetlands, there was a massive flock of Linnets feeding here with one or two Wheatears plus two pairs of Avocet, one pair look to be on eggs, and a Little Egret, we carried on to Beacon Ponds where a large flock of Dark Bellied Brents were accompanied by the Black Brant and a hybrid type, there was also a Long Tailed Duck moulting into adult plumage, then as we made our way back to the car our third Marsh Harrier of the day went over upsetting everything. At a loss what to do next we decided to head back to the Bluebell and have another look for the Firecrest even though it had not been reported all day, it proved a good move as we found it, it had moved up the road a bit from where it had been seen in the morning and we watched it as it made its way along the hedge eventually flying into the hedge over the road where we unfortunately lost it again. Back at the car we noted an increase in Wheatear and Yellow Wagtail numbers around the Borrow Pit then ended with another session in the Canal Scrape Hide but it proved rather quiet late in the day.