Stephen Dunstan
Registered User
Sorry Geoff, the title owes something to yours!
I had planned to spend the whole day on the Yorkshire coast, but as the good seawatching had slacked off a bit and the Arctic Warbler at Kilnsea went AWOL late Saturday I decided to give it a miss.
As Olivaceous and Booted Warblers came out on the pagers further south this didn't look the best decision. Then at 11.30 the news came out that the Arctic was showing well, so a quick conference with my wife and I was on my way from Blackpool.
At 4.30 this wasn't looking the best of calls, as the bird hadn't been seen for hours and all I had was a couple of Willow Warblers to my name. So I decided to spend some time seawatching off Kilnsea. I don't think I have ever seen so many terns, and perhaps inevitably there were several Arctic Skuas giving the terns a hard time. It was breathtaking for a west coast watcher, and I could barely drag myself away.
But drag myself away I did. And to cut a long story short I was rewarded with very good views of the Arctic Warbler near the Crown and Anchor pub from 5.30 to 6.00pm, when I slogged back to Blackpool and according to the pagers the warbler ended the show again for the day.
Spending three hours looking at empty trees on the opposite side of the country is a fair test of how committed you are (or whether you should be committed), finally seeing the bird you know why you bothered.
Regards,
Stephen.
I had planned to spend the whole day on the Yorkshire coast, but as the good seawatching had slacked off a bit and the Arctic Warbler at Kilnsea went AWOL late Saturday I decided to give it a miss.
As Olivaceous and Booted Warblers came out on the pagers further south this didn't look the best decision. Then at 11.30 the news came out that the Arctic was showing well, so a quick conference with my wife and I was on my way from Blackpool.
At 4.30 this wasn't looking the best of calls, as the bird hadn't been seen for hours and all I had was a couple of Willow Warblers to my name. So I decided to spend some time seawatching off Kilnsea. I don't think I have ever seen so many terns, and perhaps inevitably there were several Arctic Skuas giving the terns a hard time. It was breathtaking for a west coast watcher, and I could barely drag myself away.
But drag myself away I did. And to cut a long story short I was rewarded with very good views of the Arctic Warbler near the Crown and Anchor pub from 5.30 to 6.00pm, when I slogged back to Blackpool and according to the pagers the warbler ended the show again for the day.
Spending three hours looking at empty trees on the opposite side of the country is a fair test of how committed you are (or whether you should be committed), finally seeing the bird you know why you bothered.
Regards,
Stephen.