Dave, Roger and I were going
to Hams Wall in Warwickshire today hoping to see a Hume’s Warbler that had been
present for some time. Before we left
Roger’s we saw two male Blackcaps in his garden. On arrival there were three other birders
present and one being local advised us as to the likely whereabouts of the
bird. We spent well over two hours
searching the area without any sight of the bird, are our only reward being a
fly over Peregrine and three Chiffchaffs.
One of the birders had gone back to the other side of the bridge and
found it in a small area of scrub between the path and the road. When we got there it had disappeared and a
search around the area produced more Chiffchaffs but not the Hume’s. As we stood talking by the small scrubby area
the Hume’s flew in, calling as it did so, but disappeared almost
immediately. Whilst we were searching it
started to rain and so we retreated back to the car for lunch.
The rain eased just as we
finished our lunch and we walked back to the scrub area and found the bird had
just been seen again. A Chiffchaff was
also present in the same area and that is all we kept seeing initially but the
Hume’s continued to call occasionally and was clearly still present. We then had several poor views of the bird
and then sun came out and it showed quite well near the top of a hawthorn on
several occasions. We finally decided to
call it a day and head to Hopwood for a Great Grey Shrike.
We pulled up in a lay-by on
the B4120 and crossed the road to view the new plantation. It didn’t take too long to locate the bird
and we had some rather nice, if distant, views of the bird as it fed within the
plantation. We had intended to go to
Uffmoor Wood for a Yellow-browed Warbler but the time spent looking for the
Hume’s meant we had to call it a day and head off home.
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