Paul Matson's Birding Blog: Sunday 24th October

Spurn Bird Observatory 17th - 22nd October

I had a few days to use up from my holiday allowance and decided to book these a to stay at the observatory at Spurn in Yorkshire, having done something similar last year at Portland Bill.

As always, migration season is largely weather dependent as to how productive the birding is an oddly for this time of year it was quite mild with largely a prevailing WSW wind with a couple of days where it swung round to NW, so potentially not ideal, however this is migration time and anything can turn up anywhere.

Notably, as I arrived at the obs and started to unload the car with a box of provisions, there was a mas exodus of people shouting 'Pallid Swift.. heading this way'.. the box of food was quickly thrown back into the boot of the car and a grabbed the bins and ran to the back of the obs. Within a couple of minutes a Swift appeared and headed towards us. It had the right features, pale throat /head with a dark eye mask, broader base to the wings with rounded primary tips etc, although the key would be in any photos and I wasn't going to be able to help as I hadn't yet unpacked the camera, others had taken good pics and the id was confirmed and a Pallid Swift. The Pallid Swift drifted towards the beach and from the new tower in the obs garden remained visible for a further 30 minutes before powering South , so a great and rather lucky start to my stay.

I then headed out on foot which was a pattern of the next few days. Only once did I make the 10km round walk to the Point on a relatively quiet day. As well as the few rarities that were around the best part was watching the visible migration, birds arriving across the north sea, those heading down the peninsula towards the point and Thrushes just dropping out of the sky.

Rather than list each days activities I saw 123 species in total with the bird highlights as follows.

Leach's Petrel - One flew North on the sea on Monday
Arctic Tern - One was fishing on the sea on 3 days
Arctic Skua - 2 flew North on Monday
Great Skua - 4 were seen
Little Gulls - highest count was 14 birds

Whooper Swan - several groups were seen flying South probably 30 birds in total
Bewick's Swan - 2 birds seen flying South

Scaup - One landed on the sea

Hen Harrier - At least 2 Ringtail birds seen on 2 days
Peregrine- One seen near Sammys point
Sparrowhawk & Kestrel - Several seen coming in off the sea

Short-eared Owl - As well as several in-off the sea 3 birds over Kilnsea wetlands
Long Eared Owl - One was seen around the Triangle area having arrived over the sea
Barn Owl - One seen North of the Obs

Jack Snipe - 3 birds in flight and one on the scrape

Pallid Swift - bird of the trip one seen for c 40 minutes from the Obs on the first day.

Ring Ouzel - Several birds scattered over the area on most days
Fieldfares, Redwings and Blackbirds - Greatest spectacle of thrushes arriving over the sea and just dropping out of the sky, fantastic.

Rosy Starling - One at Easington

Barred Warbler - At least 2 individuals seen on 3 days.
Yellow-browed Warbler - At least 2 individuals around the Churchyard
Marsh Warbler - One particularly skulky accro' eventually identification concluded as a Marsh Warbler.

Spotted Flycatcher - One at Easington
Redstart - One at Sammys Point

Shorelark - One flew South over the numpties
Lapland Bunting - One flew South over the numpties

Brambling - Counts of up to 35 in first couple of days.
Hawfinch - One flew South
Tree Sparrow - coming from a Tree Sparrowless county it was great to see them in their hundreds.