cliftonbirding: Spurn delights

Monday, 10 April 2017

Spurn delights

Out with Dave and Bob from Rochdale yesterday (Sunday) who picked me up enroute to some East Coast birding and with an early report of an Iberian Chiffchaff Spurn was soon chosen as our destination, we arrived at the Crown and anchor car park to be informed the Iberian Chiffchaff had been trapped and ringed and as a result had gone quiet although the locals said a ringed Chiffchaff was still in the area and was probably the bird, we hung around for a while being entertained by two Firecrests also a Chiffchaff with a ring was seen but with no call or song we couldn’t determine whether it was it or not, it seemed a bit dark with very dark legs anyway, eventually most of the birders there including Dave and Bob started drifting away and I was left with just one other couple, after a while the guy said he’d got a pale looking Chiffchaff, I got on the bird and was struck by its greenish plumage tones but it was being very active, the other guy then said he wondered if it would respond to song and played a recording on his phone, it certainly did and flew down into the bushes in front of us then flitted into some bare branches behind us for a few seconds giving some really good views but if anything it got it calling and singing again so it became easier to keep track of it and as everybody including Dave and Bob returned they all got decent views of it. We then moved round to Kilnsea Wetlands and walked out to Holderness Fields for the drake Garganey which Dave still needed for the year then after lunch we went on to Sammy’s Point which was fairly quiet, no hoped for Wheatear or Yellow Wagtail but a Golden Plover was showing well in one of the Paddocks. With nothing more forthcoming from Spurn we headed for home calling off at North Cave Wetlands on the way where we picked up Little Ringed Plover and Ruff for the year.