Dave had not seen
Yellow-rumped Warbler and so he, Roger and I decided to go to Shincliffe in
Durham for his first lifer of the year.
News came through as we were
approaching the M62 that the bird was still present and we arrived on site at
10:00, three and a half hours after leaving home. I was surprised to see quite some many
birders with it being mid-week as access had been possible since the 9th. It was not on view and it was about thirty
minutes before it actually appeared on one of the coconut feeders and we were
able to view through the bare branches of the bushes. After it first showing it appeared with some
regularity and eventually visited a second feeder that was slightly more
visible and a managed to get a few reasonable record shots of the bird. A Willow Tit also visited the feeding area
and a Sparrowhawk also made a brief visit before we had seen the warbler and
the area was much quieter but eventually the Willow Tit and a Robin returned
and then the warbler. We decided to make
our way back at about 11:30 as we intended to call at Smawthorne Marsh in
Castleford to hopefully see a Firecrest.
Yellow-rumped Warbler
We had lunch at Wetherby
services and decided to go call at Fairburn Inges before going for the
Firecrest.
When we arrived at Fairburn
the centre was closed due to a power cut and there was no information available
on the birds present. The feeding areas
had a good selection of common species, including Tree Sparrows and we also had
our second Willow Tit of the day. We
took a short walk and saw a Kingfisher but very little else and eventually we
decided to go for the Fiercest.
Kingfisher
Male Bullfinch
Smawthorne Marsh is in the
centre of Castleford and was not particularly accessible but we did get into
the area where the Firecrest had been reported yesterday. We spent of an hour in the area but there was
no sign of the bird and we eventually called it a day and headed home.
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