Mega Rarity and Passage Waders!

 Mega Rarity and Passage Waders!

We arrived at 5:30am at Wandale Farm to see the Turkestan Shrike, a mega rarity. To get there, we parked in the car park at RSPB Bempton Cliffs- location pinned to post named 'Seabird Galore (and Mega Rarity)'- and walked out past Staple Newk Viewpoint until we got to the end of the clifftop fence. On the way, someone let me get a nice glimpse of the Black-Browed Albatross as it rested on the cliff within the colony of Gannets. Opposite the end of the fenceline is a flattened out path through some crops. Walk through that until you reach the top of the hill. From there, you should see lots of birders and that's where you go. If the birders aren't present yet, then walk along the path on top of the hill. The farmer might have parked his car there and it's opposite that. If the car is also absent, then just go to the other side of the hill and then down towards an old barn. That's where we met up with a ton of other birders. We all scanned until someone saw the birds head. But, when someone finally had the scope on it for me, it had plopped back down. Knowing it was there, we waited until it appeared again, which it did, in the same area. Someone tried explaining to me where the bird was but I couldn't spot it with my binoculars and the bird had moved again before I could take a look. But this time, someone explained to me very well where the bird last was and it finally came back up again, showing nicely this time. Then, someone let me look through there scope and I saw it. It sat in a bush before jumping onto a weed and then dropping into the grass. The Turkestan Shrike (aka Red-Tailed Shrike) is an Isabelline Shrike species and was first seen by Trevor on the wires by Staple Newk but wasn't yet identified. It was only later, once the bird had gone, that it was identified as a Red-Tailed, not a Daurian. It was then relocated by Ian at Wandale Farm and has stayed since. I then saw it again as it sat at the top of the bush, looking for something to eat and then it dropped back down. There was also a Yellowhammer present. We did see the farmer's son but he for some reason didn't charge us. We thought it was because we didn't seem like birders or he didn't notice our binoculars. But the rest of the people did pay the tenner. He did say that he was donating some of it to cancer research. After enjoying the shrike, we met a man called Andy Hall who told us to go to the car park to meet someone with his old scope to give to us. Once we had it, we learned how to use it and met Trevor, Will and Gordon who gave us a place called Thornwick Pools (location pinned on post) for Green Sandpipers. The scope was a Nikon spotting scope fixed in with 25x zoom. The scope was great, all we needed was a more stable and secure tripod. We decided to visit Thornwick Pools and asked someone called Phil to help us find it. He said it was by East Car Park so, after ages of looking around and being wrongly directed by the citizens towards the fishing and boating lakes, we found it. It's the nature reserve part of Thornwick Bay. We went to the first hide which gave a good vantage point of one of the pools from high above. We didn't see much from that hide so we went down to another hide which overlooked the second pool. There, we asked two people if they had seen any Green Sandpipers. They responded with a yes and directed me to where the bird was. I saw it and it was my second tick of the day, the first one being the Shrike. It was a target bird for me and was at first sleeping, then foraging. It was also the first bird I saw through my scope. We also saw a Little Ringed Plover to end our trip there. We then went off to see another rarity which will be featured on another post. So far, so good.