Yorkshire 300 Club

As John said 'What took you so long?' I finally managed to scrape my meagre Yorkshire list over the 300 mark with the very smart 1st winter male Serin at Flamborough, currently spending time in a set aside crop next to Millenium Wood with a bunch mixed finch flock. I have barely twitched a thing all year and very little in Yorkshire but this was too good to miss - I half expected to have a flyover at Spurn or something, not a settled bird in a flock. The views were a little brief but after 45 minutes waiting for it to show, a couple of minutes sat in a bush will do me. I even managed some dross pictures and video.

It was good to bump into Steve and Diogo, with Diogo adding his 60th new bird of the year. Great going! Also present in a reserved throng were Simon and Karen Spavin telling tales of their upcoming trip to Kenya. Birdwise there was also a Lesser Redpoll amongst the finches and 2-3 Peregrines knocking about with a juvenile begging loudly above the twitch.




In the past week I have done a very limited bit of birding over breakfast at my hotel in Ayrshire. A Long-tailed Duck, Common Scoter, Scaup and 2 Whooper Swans present on a small lowland loch has been pretty cool although the Ring-necked Duck wasnt present as hoped for. Here are a couple of fuzzy photos...

Shreep

That was the first thing I noticed about the third pipit. The call. I was walking along the southern fringe of the marsh at Barmston when I kicked five birds out of the short grass. Two Skylarks, two Meadow Pipits and a third pipit, 10% bigger, 20% longer tail but that didnt register until it went shreep. Straight away I realised what it was - it is something I have been hoping to hear for a while. Two further calls and then the party made their way south, not with much purpose but with enough to take them too far to follow. Richard's Pipit in the bag in every sense, life, patch etc. About time too... Not much else to report although a small bunting that didnt call which was being chased by two Reed Bunts refused to show. Probably just a runty reed...