Its October and the Autumnal rarity
rush is in fill swing, with The Scillies currently just edging it
against The Shetlands. Easterlies were forecast so I roped in Nicknav,
(he was recovering from pneumonia but I did not think that was a good
enough excuse to not go birding!), and we headed for Spurn Head in
Yorkshire. I love Spurn as besides the regular scarce migrants and
spectacular vagrants there are also incredible numbers of common
migrants passing through too. These provide a spectacle of their own as
a side dish to the rarities, and something to focus on when the wind is
in the wrong direction.
Easterly
winds are pretty much essential for rarities at Spurn, and clearly a
lot of people had checked the weather reports - the Observatory was
fully booked! So was the Crown and Anchor, and so in fact was just
about every B & B for miles around. However, the easterlies would
not arrive until Sunday so we had booked on the last RSPB 'Skua and
Shearwater Cruise' of the season out of Bridlington. Four hours up and
down in the North Sea hurling chum (rotten bits of old fish) off the
back to attract passing seabirds would, I assured Nicknav, do his
ailment the world of good! :D
In
the event it did and no one could accuse the RSPB of mis-naming their
cruise, we did see 'A' skua, and 'A' shearwater, just one of each mind,
you can have too much of a good thing! A great skua and a manx
shearwater (a Bonxie and a Manxie in the seawatcher's vernacular) were
the only eponymous birds of the trip though a puffin I realised was a
tick too. I had not ventured to Bempton or Anglesey this summer so
picked up a year tick there. In any case even if nothing rare or
unusual comes near the boat, it is great fun to simply point a camera at
the cloud of gulls following the boat and so we spent a happy morning
chugging up and down the sea.
Back
on dry land we twitched the red-backed shrike at Flamborough, being
among the last to see it before a sparrowhawk followed it into a bush
and presumably devoured it as it was never reported again! Shrikes to
my mind seem fatally disposed to become sprawk prey, blithely dithering
about on top of bushes in full view, their eyes on the ground for bugs.
Its a wonder we get to see any.
Back
at Spurn we asked if we could check out the rumour of a new kitchen in
the Cottage, and were delighted to find that it was true. We think it
should be named the 'Geoff Neal Memorial Kitchen' in honour of the
legend and his equally legendary Full English breakfasts that he forged
amid clouds of smoke and steam on the old cooker!
The
forecast Easterlies never appeared, the winds swinging round to North
Westerlies, about as unwanted at Spurn as bird flu. There were a few
things about though, a brambling being my first of the winter, and who
could fail to enjoy the hordes of goldfinches passing through, 11,000 in
a week. We renewed our Friends of Spurn subscriptions and also joined
the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, handy for two blokes who live near
Leicester! Still, if you're in one you can visit them all (with a
yah-boo-sucks to Norfolk!) and only one of them has Spurn, the best
birding spot on the globe!
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| Nigel Medcalf lobs another sprat at his adoring followers |
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| With the rarities on strike its time to practice with the camera! |
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| The intriguing design of Spurn hides, with the people on the outside! |
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| The old 1930s bird hides have stood the test of time. |
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| The one by the Crown and Anchor is still manned by 87-year old Perceval Postlethwaite who, refusing to believe the Germans have given in, keeps a nightly vigil for incoming Heinkels. |
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| The amazing Geoff Neal memorial Kitchen, a wonder to behold! :) |
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