All Spurnt Out!!

 All Spurnt Out!!

We arrived at Spurn YWT at 6:25am and did a morning seawatch. It was fairly quiet, except for a few Meadow Pipits flying overhead. We then went over to Syke's Field, as soon as we got word that a Mealy Redpoll was sighted there, yesterday evening. On the way, we met Harry (a volunteer at Spurn), and we walked with him to the site via Corner's Field. We waited for a bit, while two other birders were also searching for it. With no luck still, we decided to go for the Barred Warbler at Kilnsea in the Listening Dish Hedge. At 9.05 we found the flock of birders and waited for a few minutes when it suddenly flew out of the bush. We then waited ages before we managed a second look at it, which was it flying straight into another bush. We then waited again until I spotted it flying out of a bush, as everyone got distracted by a Sparrowhawk. I then waited impatiently, for another long and tiring time, before it finally came out of the bush and was feeding right in the open, which allowed me to finally get a record shot of it, with my camera, which is the second photo on this post. We then met up with Andy, near the church, where he kindly gave us a 15-45xZOOM eyepiece from Nikon- for the Nikon scope which he gave us previously.  

We also met up with Gary, who said he had seen the Mealy Redpoll and put it on the Spurn WhatsApp Group, yet not  on Birdguides or RBA. We immediately legged it there, with Andy and Gary far behind, and managed to meet up with some people who had seen it today. We waited, until one man asked me to alert the people, who were searching elsewhere for it, that he'd seen it. I asked him where it was and he said it had dropped down into the grass. Someone alerted the birders who were already rushing towards our spot to view it. Suddenly, after waiting what felt like an hour, we saw it as it came onto a high branch, and then dropped onto a lower branch, in the rising sun, making it a beautiful record shot! We then wasted no time and legged it all the way to the Canal Scrape Hide, after we heard of a Jack Snipe there, on someone's radio. As soon as we arrived, Andy, who left the Mealy Redpoll early in hopes of seeing the Jack Snipe, directed me to it and I immediately got it. After taking a record shot on the phone, Gary generously took a picture, using my camera, of the Jack Snipe so I could get a good record shot . 

We then heard news of a Lapland and a Snow Bunting in the roped-off area on the breach. While Gary was sceptical of it, we walked along the breach with no luck. Suddenly, we saw a familiar sight of  a group of  birders all looking at something, in a section of the breach looking into the roped-off area behind us. I immediately dashed there, the sand was stinging my face and hands as the wind made the fine stones hit me, when two birders said that they'd seen the Snow Bunting, not the Lapland Bunting. Then, two more birders, who were staying at the observatory, directed it to me. I then hid behind a rock, with Gary, to shelter from the flying sand and got a really good record shot that I'm most proud of. We then went to the café where we had some food and met Arfon again. He challenged me with a some bird ID and taught me about the primaries of a bird in flight and then he asked me to race my Snow Bunting image (which I think is a ssp. nivalis and a 1st-winter male, though not 100% sure).

We spent the evening watching the sunset with Gary and identifying the waders. Then Gary got a fancy scope and showed us a shining star in the sky, that was actually a planet (Jupiter) with 3 moons. He then showed us The International Space Station, as it flew past and he was amazed by it, telling us we were really lucky to see it!

Overall, a brilliant day with 4 lifers!