Saturday 1st November 2014

  Right then after last weeks 'dip' day, another mega rare bird turns up, and again its on a Thursday!!!! But, its Cleveland.....bit closer would have been nice. This was an Eastern Crowned Warbler, it was only the third ever record for the UK, the others being in Durham and Hertfordshire, the second one was only seen by the ringers (i think anyway). The Durham bird stayed around for a couple of days, will this one??? Too far for me anyway, or so i thought, until i got a text from a friend, Andy Jordan, saying he was gonna go if it sticks until Saturday.......im up for that, but it won't be there will it???

  Well, again it was still there on Friday.......getting a bit itchy now, another day in work.

  So, Saturday morning saw us driving to Brotton in Cleveland, hoping for a change in luck.

  Then the pager message saying it was still there.....brilliant.

  We arrived about nine o'clock, found the 'overflow car park' at Hunley Golf Club, and started getting the gear out. The first person i saw was Rob Jones, my Pelagic mate, he said he had been there from before light, and it was showing fairly well. Here we go then......

   Into the wood, where is the bird? The people there had lost it, but we were told it does a circuit, so we waited, both in different areas, Andy got on the bird first. We both watched it a tried to get photos, but there was not a lot of room. The bird seemed to favour 2 big Sycamores in the middle of the wood, so i got myself positioned near there, with the light behind me. The light was great too, this doesn't normally happen on mega days.

  I got some not too brilliant shots, and then it disappeared. Only to be replaced about half an hour later, by a Yellow-browed Warbler.....

   Eventually, the bird started showing well and the cameras started working. This was mine and Andy's first try with our new Canon 7d MkII cameras, and it was turning out to be brilliant. Well, i will let you decide if its brilliant or not......?

Eastern Crowned Warbler
Eastern Crowned Warbler

Eastern Crowned Warbler


Eastern Crowned Warbler




Eastern Crowned Warbler

Eastern Crowned Warbler












   Well, thats much better than last week aint it?



   So, its now getting into the afternoon, the light on the Sycamores is going, so we decide to go to Sleedale, not too far away from here, for a couple of Rough-legged Buzzards that have been around, and showing well, that would be good.















   We got to the RL Buzzard site, and saw one straight away, although it disappeared quite quickly over the brow of a hill. Andy, myself, and Darren Pearce, who we met at the ECW, then met up with a few other birders, including Rob again, and Jim Almond.....and others. In the end, we think we had 4 separate birds, brilliant...

Rough-legged Buzzard
   I managed a couple of shots too,but distant and wrong light, well you know the excuses by now...

   Ah well, i got the important one, RL Buzzard can wait for another time.....watch this space (hopefully)...


Rough-legged Buzzard

1 comment:

  1. Once again Gary a well written and informative blog. Some cracking shots here too which I can only dream of emulating some day , or I might just steal yours! Good work mate.

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