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EASTERN CROWNED WARBLER AT BEMPTON

Eastern Crowned Warbler, Bempton Cliffs, N Yorks, Oct 2016.

EASTERN CROWNED WARBLER, Bempton Cliffs, North Yorkshire. These photos, which show a lot of the ID features, were taken on the second day of its stay, 5 October 2016. It started in the shadows of the small copse next to the overflow car park before moving to the sunny west side for much of the afternoon. As time went by, it climbed higher into the sallows along the edge of the copse in search of insects and into lovely evening sunlight. I feel very lucky for the chance to see it after being out of the country for the previous two British sight records. Mind you some of my friends (Garry Taylor for instance) have seen all three! This one might have been the best so far though. The copse was full of chiffchaffs and Goldcrests with a couple of noisy Yellow-browed Warblers also present and in a nearby hedge what transpired to be an Arctic Warbler was found. Bramblings and Redwings flew by calling and Red Admiral butterflies basked on a lovely sunny autumn day. One of the best for a while. A big thank you to Dave Aitken and his staff at RSPB's Bempton Cliffs Reserve for such a nice welcome and for looking after everyone so well.

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50 NOT OUT

Common Tern, Alston Wetland..

I CAN'T SAY I'M HAPPY ABOUT TURNING 50. I'm worried about getting older, especially with a bleak economic forecast ahead and I'm not yet quite old enough to simply celebrate the fact that I'm still alive. I had a trip down memory lane with my dad on my birthday to the Settle and Carlisle railway line, passing Ribblehead and Dent Head viaducts before we reached Arten Gill, the most impressive of all of them with its massive 117ft middle piers. We had a holiday here when I was a child and Dentdale is still as pretty as I remember it, probably the prettiest of all the Yorkshire Dales? We didn't see many birds at all as it lashed down for much of the afternoon. However, the ELOC area has been quite good over the last few days as my efforts have started to pay off at last. I added three birds to my ELOC little year total: Common Scoter (a drake at Rishton Reservoir, thanks to Dave Bickerton, closely followed by another at Alston No.2); Common Tern (one at Alston Wetland today) and, finally, Eurasian Hobby (two or maybe even three hawking over moorland in Bowland - I changed my tactics and scored immediately).

Other interesting sightings included: Northern Shoveler (two at Alston were the first for weeks); Red-breasted Merganser (a mother with three small ducklings at Stocks); European Golden Plover (five at the trig point on Pendle at 0430 on my birthday); Common Redshank (two at Stocks were the first for a while there and another was at Upper Foulridge where there were two Common Sandpipers and an adult and juvenile Little Ringed Plover) and Mistle Thrush (a post-breeding flock of 14 at Kemple End). For the first time there were no crossbills on Gannow Fell this weekend.

ELOC Little Year: 142. Common Scoter 143. Common Tern 144. Eurasian Hobby

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CATCHING UP WITH SOME BREEDERS

Eurasian Reed Warbler, East Lancs.

THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS WERE QUITE PRODUCTIVE in catching up with some of East Lancs's rarest breeding birds. These included Grey Partridge, which is down to only a handful of sites, notably on the grassland of the West Pennines to the south of Burnley as well as Eurasian Reed Warbler, which is only a sporadic breeding bird, mostly owing to a lack of suitable phragmites reed bed habitat. A pair found by ELOC stalwart John Metcalf was building a nest, with the male singing occasionally. 

I was hoping that the recent torrential rain would have produced an interesting passage migrant, like Common Scoter for instance but no luck yet. June is a very good month for them in East Lancs, with the presumably failed breeders returning to the UK for the winter, taking a short cut to the Irish Sea across the Pennines and stopping off here. Project hobby has not been a success yet despite a lot of time put in but there have been a couple of sightings now quite nearby so hopefully it will be soon! 

ELOC year list 140. Grey Partridge 141. Eurasian Reed Warbler

Eurasian Reed Warbler, East Lancs.

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THE BIRDS OF BRITAIN AND EUROPE

BIRDS OF BRITAIN AND EUROPE was one of the jokes my Hungarian friends used to make in the 1990s before they had joined the EU. That is 'Britain, which is near Europe'. Part of the European Union but always on the sidelines and never really 'mucking in' or feeling 'European'. It was strange walking around East Lancs today contemplating the reality that pretty soon the situation will be reversed and they will be IN and we will be the outsiders. How times have changed? Meanwhile the ELOC area was quiet again today. I checked Stocks and Alston in the hope of a Common Scoter to no avail. Very strange that Stocks did not have one yet by the way! Again there were no additions to the ELOC little year. I am seriously running out of steam for that at the moment. However, there were a few interesting sightings, notably eight crossbills in the plantation on Gannow Fell. Other notable things were: Common Cuckoo (one over Gannow Fell); Eurasian Curlew (four flew high west over the fell, calling, presumably on their way to the coast); Common Sandpiper (a pair with a fluffy chick at Ribchester Bridge, where there was also a Common Whitethroat songflighting); Kingfisher (one flashed past the new hide at Stocks and headed into the forest!); Great Crested Grebe (eight adults at Stocks was my highest count there); Barnacle Goose (22 flew up the Hodder Inlet - where do they come from and where are they going to?); Garden Warbler and Blackcap were both still singing at Stocks but the cuckoos seem to have gone quiet now. Earlier in the week a crossbill over Longridge Fell and a Little Owl at Wetter's Bridge, Waddington were notable. On the insect front a Bilberry Bumblebee was stranded on bramble flowers by the new hide at Stocks, first one I've seen this year.

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