Arriving at around 3pm we checked into the hotel and headed straight out to bird around the hotel. We covered about a square mile before heading off to Toab. With the sea being mirror flat we notched up several harbour Porpoises, whilst the highlights of the birding were 1 Barred Warbler at Toab, 6 YBW, 1 Redstart and a Whinchat.
We all have our fingers crossed we can get the plane on to Fair Isle tomorrow.
So after a few years of promising myself a trip to Fair Isle I am sat in Stansted airport with 5 other Suffolk birders waiting to board our flight. I have to confess that I have been a little bit excited about the prospect of what I might see, so on Monday 23rd I made the decision to cut all links to the internet. This meant no twitter, Facebook, RBA or any other news services, I also stopped looking at the weather forecast and just went with the ethos that what will be will be and there is no point speculating or getting anoyed with not being there to see things. It wasn't until 7pm last night that I was aware of what was present and the forecast. Now the phrase chomping at the bit comes to mind, the birds are there and the weather looks awesome. Stay tuned for (hopefully) daily updates. P.s. please pray for me that the Lanceolated Warbler and Whites Thrush stay till Friday!
Well after twitching the smart juvenile Red-backed Shrike on the patch yesterday I thought it only right to take in the 1st winter Lesser Grey Shrike at Leiston. It showed well but distantly during the hour or so I was there but the light was always good. Will it be 3 Shrikes in 3 days, I doubt it.
Spent the afternoon on the Deben digiscoping a few of the birds that were hanging around on the falling tide. Not many waders were about with turnstones being the commonest of the close waders but none ventured close enough to get a decent photo. An Osprey plane flying over was nice to see. Hopefully I will be able to get down to the river again in the near future to get some photos of other waders.
With the long, but appreciated, hot spell birding has been some what put on the back burner with the only exception being a few visits to the patch in search of that midsummer mega. As these visits yielded little I have been turning my attention to the great numbers of butterflies that have been gracing us over the last few weeks. The buddlieas around the visitors centre have been my main focus and a good variety has resulted, some of which I managed to photograph.
Today (11th August) I visited the patch with the main aim of photographing Clouded Yellow butterflies and to perhaps add black tern to the patch year list. I started with a seawatch at around 7:10 to let the sun get high enough in the hope butterfly activity would increase. The sea was very quiet with not much more than a few comic terns moving south distantly and the odd Gannet cruising around. It was therefore a bit of a shock when a Cory's Shearwater flew through my field of view and headed south giving nice views as it did so. A couple of other species also made it on to the patch year list and these were Teal!! (how on earth I have missed them up until now is beyond me) and Golden Plover. It seems autumn is upon us as a few more warblers have started to appear and waders where frequently encountered passing over. I did manage to see 3 possibly 4 clouded yellows, all of which eluded the camera. Several hundred large whites were on the move and heading south. Also seen where peacock, small tortoiseshells, Gatekeepers, common blue, painted lady, grayling, and meadow brown.
