It's been a long time since I've had the chance to go through and delete the countless, overwhelmingly mostly crappy images that have filled up my memory cards over the last 18 months, but having run out of space, last night I reluctantly took the plunge. Deleting blocks of hundreds (sometimes thousands) at a time, it occurred to me double-check a series from Hartendale, Flamborough almost three weeks ago, just to make sure my suspicions at the time remained unconfirmable. You can probably see where this is going.....
Back on the morning of 2nd June, I had an hour or so to kill before family duties in Flamborough and then work back in Filey, and with plenty of late spring overshooting rarity action happening (but the usual local spots somewhat swamped with tourists in warm sunshine), I decided on a walk along Hartendale, a thickly vegetated gully that runs south from the village to the south cliff, just east of Danes Dyke. It's an underwatched spot I always intend to do more often - maybe I'll finally take heed this time....
Long story short, I caught several glimpses of what I thought could be a Subalpine Warbler sp, pursued by territorial Lesser Whitethroats through the thick scrub. With the inevitable dog walkers soon approaching a few metres in front of me, more in vain hope than expectation I fired off a series of rapid shots in the general direction of the bird(s) as the dogwalkers passed, greeting them through gritted teeth as they disturbed the area, stepping off the narrow path into the crop to let them by.
Oh, f.....
After a good while of seeing nothing but Lesser (and Common) Whitethroats in the same area and having checked the images on the back of my camera (in strong light, and in retrospect somewhat, er, unthoroughly) that showed endless, various angles of Lesser 'throats, I admitted defeat, and talked myself out of it; maybe it was just a combination of tricks of the light, projecting a search image onto a commoner species, and wishful thinking in the context of similar rarities arriving elsewhere.
Just a Lesser Whitethroat, surely....
... until you look a little harder at the left of the photo
Fast forward to yesterday, and the reality is somewhat different (insert facepalm memes and emojis, and expletives, here). As illustrated by the accompanying photos, the camera did in fact capture a smart male Subalpine Warbler species after all; somehow I must've scrolled past them at the time, inducing a nightmare in the process. Of what species, well, the jury is out, and enquiries are ongoing (more hopefully to follow).
Excuses? Well, plenty (even if none of them really cut it): I had to be somewhere else sharpish (family issues), after which my mind went into work mode; I crashed out soon after, got up to go birding the following day and was fortunate to find both Rosy Starling and Bee-eater, which served to further bury the memory of the subalp-that-most-likely-wasn't; then days go by without re-checking the card, and it gets lost in the mix along the way....
In the meantime, if you need me I'll be under the stairs wearing a conical hat with a big D on it.
