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BROOKE BOND IBERIAN LYNX!

This is 'Guadiato' a male lynx known from the Cordoba area - he wandered c.70km to get to Puerto Bajo!

ADDING IBERIAN LYNX TO MY COLLECTION OF 'TEA CARD STYLE' PHOTOS wasn’t something I’d imagined would ever be possible. Thanks to my friends at Wildwatching Spain I was able to rattle off hundreds of frames of this beautiful creature from a photo hide on the pretty Puerto Bajo estate in the Sierra de Andújar of Andalucia. I was lucky to have five sightings in three days, four from the hide, three of them very good indeed (a male and a female) and another male along the well-known public road south of the Embasle de Jandular. The first was so good that my shutter finger was still shaking after it! It takes a lot to get me that excited these days! The Sierra de Andújar is another lovely corner of Spain, just northeast of Cordoba, with a rolling landscape covered in Mediterranean scrub and Cork Oak/Strawberry Tree woodland. There is also a good population of rabbits here, the favourite prey of the lynx, thanks to a massive conservation effort, which now seems to be paying dividends in bringing this wonderful creature back from the brink of extinction. As everywhere in rural Spain, the food here is fantastic as well. It’s simple but I love waking up to a breakfast with toast, olive oil, the best in the world, pressed in the last month, fresh tomato spread and this year’s freshly squeezed orange juice. Shhhh it’s almost as good as the lynx! Thanks to Iñaki Reyero, Juan Carlos Poveda Vera and Fernando Prieto.

Guadiato takes a look at the photo hide, wondering what all the shutter noise is?

He pauses to look back over his shoulder as he crosses a country road.

In lovely early morning light the next day.

Iberian Lynxes are truly magnificent animals!

This is the adult female of the estate, 'Gema', only a little more slightly built than Guadiato.

She is also hunting for rabbits.

Gema checks out a rabbity old log.

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CRAG MARTIN AT CHESTERFIELD

Eurasian Crag Martin, Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield. What time is it?

I'VE NEVER BEEN TO CHESTERFIELD. I only saw it on football results before. It's not the kind of place you go to for any other reason. It's not on the way to anywhere but it is now on the UK's birding map! Rocket and I dragged ourselves there this afternoon to see the Eurasian Crag Martin, which has taken up temporary residence at the crooked spired church of St Mary and All Saints in the town centre. What odds on predicting this one? Another event in our ornithological history!

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SPURN MIGRATION 18 OCTOBER 2015

Pallas's Warbler in autumn colours, Kilnsea

PALLAS'S WARBLER WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF ANOTHER GRAND DAY OUT AT SPURN with Mark Varley and Rocket. A constant stream of admirers passed by the roadside verge at Kilnsea to look for this albeit elusive little beauty.  Difficult enough to see, let alone photograph, we spent several hours standing around trying the recreate the first few minutes of our time with it to no avail. Truth is there was so much else to see on a classic late autumn day of migration at Spurn.

Soon after we got out of the car at the Warren the first of three Great Grey Shrikes was on driftwood along the saltmarsh, which it occasionally returned to when not hunting Goldcrests. The sky and bushes were full of birds: many hundreds of winter thrushes and starlings; siskins and redpolls headed south calling overhead all day; a few small groups of Bramblings were our first of the autumn; two or three Short-eared Owls frequented the Triangle area; a female Merlin dashed past at the new narrows hunting shorebirds and a three Whooper Swans flew south whooping as they went. The birds certainly brightened up a dull day with a light NNE wind and occasional drizzle! The variety of migrants was fairly low with typically later birds like Goldcrests (every bush had at least one or two!) robins and Redwings, Fieldfares and blackbirds dominating with a few Blackcaps and chiffchaffs amongst them. Migration spectacles like this are definitely the 'new rarities' for me! There is nothing quite like an autumn fall at Spurn.

We ended with a fine point blankSnow Bunting in the clifftop caravan park and the American Golden Plover in a field with lapwings along the Easington straight. What a great way to finish off another fantastic day! Back to the Middle East tomorrow.

Goldcrest = another contender for bird of the day! Some within touching distance.

Snow Bunting, Kilnsea Caravan Park - I hardly dropped below 3200ISO in the gloom today.

Everyone loves Pallas's Warblers!

The Humber shore from the Canal.

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SPURN MIGRATION 3-4 OCTOBER 2015

Olive-backed Pipit, Middle Camp.

A CLASSIC WEEKEND AT SPURN KICKED OFF WITH NEWS OF AN OLIVE-BACKED PIPIT found at high tide near the Chalk Bank seawatching hide. Although there wasn't any rain the previous night, high pressure and light easterlies had persisted on and off all week, yet another record-breaking influx of Yellow-browed Warblers was taking place in the UK and particularly at Spurn. I wondered what was coming behind this wave of what was presumably thousands of birds from the Urals and eastwards. The third of October also marked the first time I saw YbW, on Holy Island in Northumberland when I was still a kid in 1981.

After a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers and a quick look at a nice Jack Snipe from the Canal Scrape hide (this is one of the best places to see them in the UK these days), alongside a Common Snipe, Robi Goder and Attila Simay and I trekked out to the point, crossing the breach just after the tide had fallen. The OBP was quite elusive and took quite a lot of folks to find it but occasionally it sat up in ancient elder bushes for a few seconds allowing some nice views.

Olive-backed Pipit, Middle Camp.

Most people had drifted off back north towards the Warren again and I was still trying to get some photos of the pipit when news came through over the shortwave radios of a Pied or Black-eared Wheatear on the beach at Chalk Bank less than 1km to the north! OK I can leave this for a little while I thought until a short while later more news... a Citrine Wagtail on the beach at the breach. Wow! Black-eared is a much rarer bird in Yorkshire than the former but the wheatear was quite quickly decided to be a Pied and when I eventually caught up with the crowds I was pleased to see it was a smart male too! The wheatear was moving up and down along the stretch of beach and some people had even photographed both of these birds in the same frame!

Pied Wheatear, Chalk Bank.

Happily both the wheatear and wagtail stayed long enough for me to see them, albeit in dull afternoon light. There were not many other commoner migrants around though, except for plenty of Goldcrests and Common Reed Buntings plus a few Song Thrushes, Chiffchaffs and a Blackcap. What a day indeed! I don't think I had been on the spot for three birds of this rarity to turn up within walking distance since the two cuckoos and grosbeak on St Mary's in 1985.

Citrine Wagtail on the beach just south of 'The Breach'.

After an enjoyable evening in the Crown & Anchor (another 30 years anniversary!) I hiked back to the Point with Dave Hursthouse but the OBP and wheatear were not to be found today, just a Jack Snipe and a few Northern Wheatears of note. The Citrine Wagtail had moved north to the triangle and we saw it a couple of times in front of the Canal Scrape hide. Amazing how different its appearance looked in the warm sun today! There were still some Yellow-browed Warblers around but first place went to an apparently new Arctic Warbler trapped at Kew. There was a mass gathering of twitchers for this one (even though Lee was worried that 'some people are missing'), all lined up along the fence in the Church Field as Paul walked it down but with so many people there wasn't time for much more than a quick glimpse before its release. Super smart phyllosc nevertheless! There were a few spots of rain and the wind had turned to the east again as redwings flew over calling.

Arctic Warbler, Church Field.

While we were milling around after this, news from Adam Hutt of a Little Bunting flying around over the Warren. It was trapped there soon afterwards and he showed it next to the seawatching hide, encircled by a crowd of keen twitchers. Thanks a lot for some great work mate! The guys at Spurn try very hard to show the interesting birds they catch and use the opportunity to raise funds for the conservation and ringing efforts there. However, I did see some 2p pieces in the collection bucket. This is Yorkshire after all! Remember to take some £1 coins next time or better still, become a Friend of Spurn Bird Observatory, it's only £22 per year and a very worthy cause.

Little Bunting, The Warren.

Attila and I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Yellow-browed Warblers among the Goldcrests. A Comma and Red Admiral brightened up things at the Warren, the Citrine Wagtail landed on the road on front of us at the Triangle and we enjoyed some great grub at the Bluebell. The Hungarian boys were late to rise and started drinking lager again immediately but Attila still managed a self-found UK lifer, a Great Egret flying south over Beacon Lane. Everyone else 'found' it too. A flock of Pinkfeet also passed over and a female Merlin was hunting shorebirds along the Humber of note. We finished with the Arctic Warbler feeding in a hedge at Church Field. A great way to end a weekend that we will remember for a long time. THANK YOU SPURN!

Citrine Wagtail, Canal Scrape.

Goldcrest at the Warren

Comma on autumn Sycamore leaf.

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