Looking back through my old notes, autumn trips to Holme Dunes in the late 80’s and early 90’s resulted in a few ticks for me including Yellow-browed Warbler, Common Rosefinch, and Brambling! It’s been years since my last visit, though, and the lure of multiple Red-flanked Bluetails was too much.
Stopping to recharge myself (coffee) and the car (electricity) in Brancaster Staithe, I noticed a tweet from Graham Etherington that he’d just had a vocal Yellow-brow in Burnham Deepdale churchyard. Being so close I strolled down, and very soon was enjoying great views of a YBW, accompanied by Blackbirds, Redwings, Goldcrests and Robins.
Next stop the village car park at Holme-next-the-Sea. I walked out onto the golf course and joined a small group watching the hedgerow where a Bluetail was doing a feeding circuit. Eventually I got a view, then after another wait another showing. Probably 30 seconds in an hour on site. Great birds, elusive as ever.
Returning to the car park, a second bird has been showing on the hedgerow at the eastern end of the car park, and again after another wait this bird reappeared. Two Red-flanked Bluetails at one site, unthinkable a decade ago. A Woodcock flew low over the car park, twice, whilst we were waiting for the Bluetails.
Deciding it was time to move on, firstly I needed a call of nature. I was clearly so in the bird-finding zone and so focused on Sibe passerines that I failed to notice to toilet block opposite the car park entrance, as I walked round the gold course side to nip behind a small patch of sallows.
No sooner had a found a suitable spot when I noticed a flickering in the trees in front. Binoculars on it and boom, Pallas’s Warbler. What a bird they are. Seeing another birder the other side of the sallows, the car park side, I caught his attention and shouted across what I’d seen, so he could get onto it from within the car park. Mission successful, and it showed delightfully in front of 30 birders for the next ten minutes.
Now it was time to move on, so I drove round to Thornham harbour, and was just starting to scan the saltmarsh, enjoying a Black-tailed Godwit in rich mid-afternoon sunlight, when news came through of a Dusky Warbler at Holme NOA. At this point I forgot my geography, as I should have just continued by slow walk around the sea wall straight into the reserve, and probably finding the Thornham Pallas’s on the way. Instead I drove all the way back round...
Always a treat to visit the NOA reserve, and chatting to warden Sophie Barker she’d found the vocal Dusky working through the reedbed and bushes alongside the Broad Water. Nets were opened in the hope of catching the bird, but only a Robin and a disgruntled looking Chiffchaff so far.
I spent the next couple of hours enjoying the NOA reserve, pishing out Blackcaps and noting a couple of RB Mergs on the sea. Then word got around the few birders on site that the Dusky had been seen again, and as I walked down to the Broad Water I could hear the distinctive tacking of a Dusky Warbler. The bird showed on & off, my first UK Dusky warb for almost 20 years.
I spent last knockings back in the car park, catching up with Mike & Rose Collard and Matt & Bryony Slaymaker, an old Bucks reunion after they’d been tempted across by the Bush Chat. Up to three Bluetails kept appearing for split seconds as a small group of birders tried to decide the best place to wait. Mike, Rose & I were last three standing on the golf course side when a Bluetail popped up on the brambles right in front of us, giving the best Bluetail views of the day.
A fitting end, to one of the best days birding I’ve had in the UK for an awfully long time.
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