I am just going through some very mixed emotions at the moment:
Went for a walk yesterday to Blakeney Point in the (optimistic) hope that there would still be some migrants hanging around.
After just 1 wheatear and 1 garden warbler I had given up and was sitting by the plantation contemplating a sleep at approx 13.30 when suddenly a pale sandy coloured bird circled above .. my description in my notebook word for word is as follows:
'mystery bird - light brown/ginger in colour circled plantation then was about to land but saw me and flew off towards the distant huts - could not be relocated. Larger than linnet with broader rounded wings. Strange weazy flight call'
I spent an hour trying to relocate the bird and only once did I see it distantly flying off with some linnets - again all I saw was a pale bird larger than Linnet flying off!
I left a message on the phone of a birding friend (David Lindo) to say I had a strange pale bird and also called my fiance' Nathalie to tell her about it using the words ' like a Trumpeter Finch ' to describe it to her (We had both seen the Suffolk bird together years ago). I was staying away from home last night so had no access to a computer to look up and listen to the flight call
Looking back now I should have trusted my instinct, but who would have believed me and on a flight view!! The flight call was obviously diagnostic but i could not remember the call and kept thinking about the 'trumpeting song' which I have heard on tape and is obviously different!
If only it had landed... if only...
I suppose I should be pleased that it is still there and will still send in a description for what its worth!
PS I called Birdline East Anglia today to say that i had seen the bird yesterday and they informed me that somebody else had seen it yesterday evening but the news took a while to filter out !? In case anyone thinks that was me surpressing news:-C
Absolutely gutting mate! I've let one or two slip by me (a Sprosser @ Languard), but nothing like that. Just goes to show, your right, you should trust your instincts (still wondering about that lark last week...)
Congratulations to Jason Moss though (a former regular poster on this forum, before seeking excile on Blakeney), who was fortunate enough to (re)locate it and get others onto it for clinching ID views. Finding a 1st for Norfolk - not bad for one spring on the point, although you've got to feel for James Mccallum, who's walked the point thousands of times over the last 15? or so years as was telling me just last week, he'd never found a 1st.
Went up for it yesterday. Good to see the twitchers sweating for a change - including one hot and flustered looking Lee Evans, with Tim Allwood on tow of all people!!
Well done all the wardens for organising things, so that oyc eggs etc didn't get trampled. For anybody wondering why the news was delayed - it was so that the wardens could corden-off all the eggs before the crowds arrived.
Found an Icky at Holkham on Saturday, which rather annoyingly went AWOL when the crowds turned-up and wasn’t seen again. A bit of a downer after finding a good bird, to feel the growing animosity towards me and people (some, not all) muttering about “demotion to phyllosc”. I wouldn’t mind, as scepticism in birding keeps us all in check, except that the only time I’ve seen most of those folk before is at the few twitches I’ve been on, and never out and about trying to find their own stuff.
