Asian Desert Warbler, The Snook, Holy Island 16 June 2020 (Mike Watson) CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LIGHTBOX
‘NORTHUMBERLAND OWES US’, we thought, referring to the pair of Ivory Gulls, which Rocket and I had missed on another of our miserable dips, now seven(!) years ago. However, we were pretty sure that the Asian Desert Warbler found by my old friend Mike Carr yesterday evening on Holy Island would stay a few more hours until we got there. Lucky for us it did but it was a strange journey, having to drive there in convoy in separate cars, owing to the Covid-19 social distancing rules. We chatted over the phone on handsfree a few times along the way, passing the Angel of the North, ‘Wow, what’s that?’ said Alexander and soon afterwards we passed signs to my old home village, Whickham before we raced up the A1 to Holy Island (or Lindisfarne). This was Alexander’s first visit to Holy Island and the ebbing tide still covered the causeway as we joined a small queue of cars waiting to cross at Beal, which was very exciting for him! A couple of whimbrels flew overhead calling and a Little Egret was out on the saltmarsh. I mentioned how Mike Carr and I had to push Andy Mould’s old mk I Ford Capri off the causeway on a rising tide in 1984, with water up to our knees and a fountain of seawater spraying up out of his gearbox. The car died the following week on an aborted trip to the Peak District.
The desert warbler was less exciting for Alexander though, as it remained inside the cover of some small isolated pines on the Snook for long periods, in poor light and usually mostly obscured. It did give up in the end and he could at least see its beady yellow iris through my binos. Even though it was my third in the UK after the Plymouth and Blakeney Point birds in the 1990s, and I have seen lots in the Middle East, I couldn’t say no to another in one of my favourite places. The visit brought back memories of my first BB rarity, which was here on 3 October 1981, a Scarlet Rosefinch found by Colin Bradshaw in the garden of Snook House and then there was the male subalpine warbler I found here with Keith Regan in May 1989 (I must get around to checking which subspecies that was). I had been thinking lately about going a little further afield than Lancashire for the first time since lockdown started, now that the rules have been relaxed a bit. So I was pleased to see only a small crowd, of around 40 people at any one time and it was nice to catch up with another old birding friend Ian Fisher. The rain held off and it turned into a grand day out among a carpet of marsh orchids!
Asian Desert Warbler, The Snook, Holy Island 16 June 2020 (Mike Watson)
‘Are we going to drive across?’