Spurn - Thrushes and three first's!

After a great day at Spurn, with Dad a couple of weeks earlier, we just had to return for another go at migration watching. So we both booked the time off work and started to plan the trip. We planned as much as we could, however the only thing we couldn’t plan or predict was the weather. It wasn’t just raining that morning; it was “pouring” it down! The roads leading to Spurn were flooded and thoughts flashed through my head of the point being completely washed away. After driving around Easington watching Redwings and Fieldfare, we made our way to the observatory. It became obvious that the best way to spend the morning was from within the sea-watching hide, protected from the elements. We joined the other birders already in the hide, and immediately started picking up the birds that they called out. It was like sitting next to a motorway, watching the different types of cars go back and forth; only these weren’t cars but birds! The main birds moving were Little Auks. Almost all were flying north, at varying distances from the coast. The count for the morning was 226. We also saw one Red Throated diver flying above the horizon a good distance out, a couple of Great Skua sitting amongst the waves, playing with gulls, Gannets flying north and south and a number of Guilemots heading south. There was also a number of ducks, mainly flying south. These included Common Scoter, Wigeon, Teal, and Mallard. The other main attraction was the masses of thrush’s flying in from the continent. The birds would have left the continent very early in the morning and taken 4-6 hours to fly over the sea. The groups were made up of Redwing, Fieldfare and Blackbirds, with Redwings making up the majority of the birds. The final observatory count for the day was 7000 Redwing, 3000 Fieldfare and 1045 Blackbirds! They were flying straight towards us, then turning left or right to touch down on land. Upon hitting the land they fell like stones into the nearest cover, and started looking for food. We stayed in the hide until 12:00, and decided it was lunchtime, all the sea watching had made us feel hungry! We drove to the narrows on Spurn and had lunch in the car while trying to look out to sea through the car window. After lunch, and deciding the weather was a little clearer, we headed for the dunes at the end of Spurn. With the rain still lashing down we got all our wet weather gear on and as soon as we started walking the rain stopped, hurray. There had been a Little Bunting at the point for most of the previous week, so I convinced Dad that we had a chance of finding it amongst the scrub. The point was covered in thrushes, literally. We started off walking around the scrub and old derelict buildings and found Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Goldcrest, the later being just feet away from us. I wasn’t sure where the Little Bunting had been seen before, until we met another birder who told us that it had been seen near the ‘green beacon’. So we headed back to the beacon to search for the bunting. As we stopped and searched, Dad spotted a Brambling in a tree and we soon located a small group of about 15 birds. They are stunning little birds, full of colour. It must be amazing to see the huge dense flocks of Brambling in the summer breeding grounds. We followed the path around after seeing the Brambling and I spotted a small Bunting at the base of a nearby tree. I moved a bit closer and managed to get good enough views to realise that it was the Little Bunting, I called Dad, but by the time he walked down the path to where I was the Bunting had gone! Well they said it was elusive and they were dead right! By the time we finished walking around the point dunes it was 14:15, so we headed for the narrows again, to spend the last hour sea watching. We saw more Little Auk flying north along with Gannets, Common Scoter and Brent Geese. We left at 15:30, after having another wonderful day, despite the bad weather. The day brought three firsts for me, Little Bunting, Great Skua and Brambling. Despite the excitement of seeing three firsts, the most amazing part was being at the point with thousands of thrushes erupting from every bush. It was hard to stop and look at a single bird without it being lost amongst the masses. There was 4 Ring Ouzels reported at the point that day, I heard at least one and Dad had a half sighting of one from the rear. They were definitely hard to find with so many other thrushes around. We will have to return in the spring to see the same birds heading in the opposite direction. Wonderful.