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Bempton Cliffs

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TURKESTAN SHRIKE AT BEMPTON

Turkestan Shrike (male), Wandale Farm, Bempton

ANOTHER GRAND DAY OUT IN YORKSHIRE WITH MARK VARLEY. It’s been a long time since we were last on the east coast so the Turkestan Shrike at Bempton was just what was needed to tempt me over, despite the cost of petrol, busy desk at work, other commitments etc. Another reason was that I ‘lost’ all my UK isabelline shrikes, following the verdict that they are not identifiable in immature plumages. This was very disappointing after seeing quite a few from Portland to Eyemouth, Horsey, Nene Washes and of course the Buckton bird, which was most likely a Turkestan too.

As always, a day time drive across Yorkshire was not fun, with zillions of tractors and surprisingly lots of tourists on the A-roads. We eventually arrived and parked at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, miles from where the shrike was, in the small copse behind Wandale Farm. Yellowhammers sang from every hedge along the way and a couple of distant Corn Buntings ‘jangled their keys’, birds long lost from East Lancs. [Yellowhammer has declined by 58% 1967–2016 in the UK and it is red-listed but it still thrives along the East Yorkshire coast thanks to a good winter food supply.] I enjoyed the Yellowhammers just as much as the shrike! A Little Owl peered down from between the slates of the dilapidated old farm house, behind its 1960s successor.

It’s just flown back into the hedge 5 minutes ago’. Time passed by as it got colder under an overcast sky and eventually, more than two and a half hours later, the shrike finally reappeared, in the exact spot it was last seen, in a tangled hawthorn. It obviously disliked the colder spells when clouds covered the sun and it showed several more times until the evening. A Yellow Wagtail flew over calling, another one long lost from East Lancs. We walked past ripening barley fields, towards the fabulous Bempton Cliffs seabird show. As well as the noisy gannets and kittiwakes, there were many Razorbills as well as smaller numbers of puffins and guillemots and lots of comings and goings. Fabulous stuff, almost hypnotic. The Black-browed Albatross was an ‘also’ again today, sat in the gannet colony, far away down Staple Newk, where it has settled again this summer.

Yellowhammer male singing at Wandale Farm

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GREEN WARBLER AT BUCKTON

Green Warbler, Buckton, East Yorkshire 11 September 2021

SOME NUMBERS INCREASED BY ONE THIS WEEKEND. That’s about what my birding amounted to. First of all a Pectoral Sandpiper at lunchtime on 10 September at Alstion Wetland, found by Gavin Thomas, was a new bird for the Ribchester 5KO and the East Lancs ELOC area for me. It spent the brief few minutes I was there creeping around the far shore of the wetland lagoon, so basically rubbish views before I had to go and move my car so Phil and I decided to shove off home/back to work.

Secondly the Green Warbler at Buckton in East Yorkshire moved my UK list on by one as well. Many thanks to Rocket for the lift and another grand day out. The warbler kept us waiting in the dell for almost three hours, which is bascially Mark Thomas’s ringing station project. Top marks and many thanks to him for his years of hard work that culminated in this 8th record for Britiain and only 2nd for the mainland. The crowd of birders assembled by the dell had been instructed by Mark to stay back and he did a brilliant job of keeping it a pleasant atmosphere with no-one rushing the bird, which returned to a small crab apple tree, surrounded by willows waving in the wind in the middle of the dell. It was apparent that some folks still need to spend some time getting know Willow Warblers, of which there was a couple and a Yellow Wagtail flew north, calling. I have been talking about what next after White-tailed Lapwing and Sykes’s Warbler from Central Asia, so what next then?

Oh and there was the Black-browed Albatross on Staple Newk at Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve as well, a bit distant and then it flew directly out to sea to continue the series of poor distant views. This didn’t seem to matter too much, it was great to catch up with some friends today as well.

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BEMPTON ALBATROSS

Black-browed Albatross from Staple Newk, Bempton RSPB reserve, 5 July 2021

AT LAST I MANAGED TO SEE AN ALBATROSS IN THE UK! The words ‘at last’ are well-justified in this case. My first miss was a week on Unst on Shetland in 1990, just about as far away from home as I could get in the UK at the time, when I was in Hertfordshire. This coincided with ‘Albert Dross’, as it was cruelly known (one of my pet hates is calling birds, and walruses for that matter, daft names), taking a week off from his ledge on the cliff face. After running the gauntlett of the bonxie colony at Hermaness, I recall lying on the ground and peering over the edge of the immense cliff face (double the height of Bempton!) to where the albatross usually sat on the top of a prominent buttress. It wasn’t there. The disappointment was crushing even though I did see some other nice things in Shetland but to add insult to injury as soon as I got home, the Pallas’s Sandgrouse turned up near where I had been staying and I wasn’t able to go back for it. The urge to see an albatross in the UK waned after I saw thousands of them in New Zealand and more recently the South Atlantic, where we even cruised past Steeple Jason in the Falkland Islands, home to the world’s largest Black-browed Albatross colony (tens of thousands filled the sky like a swarm of insects). However, albatrosses are special and the thought of seeing one in the North Atlantic/Western Palearctic/UK remained appealing. Apparently not appealing enough for me to rush down to the viewpoints from the Eastern Crowned Warbler at Bempton in 2016, I didn’t want to ‘go off and do something else badly’ until I had managed a decent photo of the warbler, so I ignored it until had gone. It has just taken 5 years to prove that was the right decision! In the meantime I was late to the Bempton albatross party in 2020 and missed it again, even sleeping in the car and trying again the following day to no avail.

Back to 2021 and the clifftop viewpoints on the RSPB’s Bempton reserve. I arrived in late morning after enduring commuter traffic, lorries, roadworks and at least one million tractors on the cross-country journey from East Lancs, to meet Johnny Mac coming away from the morning sighting. Not the first time he’s turned up by chance just when I needed some help. Staple Newk (the most easterly viewpoint, pronounced ‘Stapple Nuck’ it means ‘pillar corner’) was where I should head to and happily the albatross was still sat on the sea to the east of there, just about visible in binos (no details) and only a little better through a scope (orange bill, but the first bird I was shown was a black-backed young gannet, just to add a little more stress!). Not long afterwards the albatross flew in and proceeded to give repeated awesome views as it circled the gannetry on the arch below the viewing platform, before finally landing out of sight around the corner of the cliff. Phew, that was something! I waited for another 8 hours for it to return, passing the time with my old pal Duncan, who had missed in by 10 minutes the week before, but when it did return it only made a few circuits before landing out of sight of both the Staple and even Roll-up viewpoints, its massive wings popping up from behind some rocks the only clue. The seabird colonies of Bempton is one of the top birding experiences in the UK and I said this before, isn’t it ironic that so many of us are obsessed with seeing something that should not be there instead of just enjoying the spectacle of the regular birds? It’s nice to have your cake and eat it though! The walk to the cliff top through uncut hay meadows full of Tree Sparrows, linnets, Corn and Reed Buntings, Meadow Pipits and skylarks addded to the enjoyment of a special day. I should make a note for next July that the excellent kebab shop in Flamborough stays open late but only takes cash!

The albatross crosses the gannetry on the arch below Staple Newk

Photobombing gannet

The view looking east of Staple Newk, the chalk cliffs that form Flamborough Head are magnificent!

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ARCTIC WARBLER AT BEMPTON

ARCTIC WARBLER at RSPB Bempton Cliffs Reserve on 5 October. An Arctic Warbler was reported at Bempton on 6 October in addition to the Greenish (Eastern Crowned and Yellow-browed Warblers!) leading to some discussion. These photos were taken when the crowds were first taken into the usually out of bounds field to see the bird reported as a Greenish.

I hadn't looked at my rather poor photos of it until later and it appeared to have some pro-Greenish ID features like small dark spot on lores, pale feathering at base of upper mandible, diffusely spotted ear coverts, broad supercilium not narrowing behind eye, pale tip to pale lower mandible, whitish unstreaked underparts, uniform crown, c.65% primary projection vs. tertial length and tail projection vs. primary tips about the same length.

However, opinion seems to be Arctic now, especially having heard the call and it is generally thought that the Greenish and Arctic were one and the same all along. Surprising how tricky this one is, it does look very, much like a Greenish in some of these photos but it has the same primary covert pattern and greater covert bar of the bird that looks much more like an Arctic in flat light on the following days. The wings-open shot below seems to show emarginations to only three primaries (P3,4+5), which is mentioned as diagnostic for Arctic. The pale feathering above the bill is probably not extensive enough for Greenish but the broad supercilium behind the eye is still perplexing but maybe just a result of a particular stance? There are photos of clearer Arctics on the internet with pale tips to the lower mandible as well as uniform crowns, whitish unstreaked underparts and a similar pp to this bird.... so it looks like I need to forget some of the features mentioned above as exclusively for Greenish and this pair can obviously still cause problems to experienced observers. I commented at the time that the head pattern of these phylloscs changes with their stance and also the direction of light but please note I have rewritten this post in light of subsequent opinion. Please comment below if you would like to add to the debate! Thanks again to the finder Trevor Charlton and the lovely people at RSPB Bempton for looking after us.

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