Review of the Year, 2024 - part four

Crested Tit, Anagach Woods, November 

October began - where else this autumn?! - in the Kilnsea / Spurn area, Rich and I guiding a large visiting group for several days, incorporating not just the aformentioned sites but also the excellent new flood alleviation habitats a little further up the Northern bank of the Humber at Welwick / Weeton. Conditions were pretty challenging, but the birding was quality - including a gorgeous juvenile Pallid Harrier that followed us around and consistently showed up at close range....

.... and not forgetting two quality Phylloscs - Pale-legged Leaf and Arctic Warbler - bookending the guiding.

Pale-legged Leaf Warbler - nonchalantly twitched by Rich and I on our way to guiding at Spurn....

... and a Spurn Arctic Warbler - impossibly tame! 

The forecast for the following 24 hours promised overnight easterlies and rain, and then sunshine - too much to resist, and so it was straight back to the coast for first light on 3rd, and a glorious session at Filey, which included stumbling upon not one but two Pallas's Warblers;

One of two Pallas's Warblers that welcomed me back to Filey on 3rd Oct. Unbeatable 

the following day, and brother Yoav and I had a blinding session at Old Fall, Flamborough, similarly bathed in sunshine and surrounded by quality birds. A cracking two days, worth checking out here. 

Olive-backed Pipit, Flamborough 

Guiding dominated much of the month, at Flamborough / Bempton for several days, then Spurn for a week, then Flamborough / Bempton for a few more days, then Spurn for the last week of the month (with any spare days surveying - a full-on month even by recent standards).

Pink-footed Geese arriving in off the sea at Flamborough lighthouse 

The quality birding continued unabounded, with the Flamborough days providing such gems as Daurian Shrike, Olive-backed Pipit, Red-flanked Bluetail, movements of thrushes, finches and Whooper Swans, Yellow-browed Warblers, Merlins and much more, and culminated, wonderfully, with a close-in Humpback Whale feeding underneath us at Bempton... 

Humpback - a surprise bonus on one of my Birding Discovery Days at Bempton in October!

Daurian (Isabelline) Shrike @Bempton_Cliffs yesterday, performing beautifully for my @YCNature group. If it stuck around ling enough for one of my tours, I promised to go and say hello - so we did. A beautiful bird with an appetite for Goldcrests! 🍽 pic.twitter.com/C9zRl4EYe6

— Mark James Pearson (@Markthebirder) October 7, 2024

Red-flanked Bluetail, Bempton 

Spurn, meanwhile, was everything you'd want it to be in October, with too many special moments to mention here; so much migration quality and quantity over the two weeks, with floods of incoming songbirds, lots of late autumn continental classics (Long- and Short-eared Owls, Woodcocks, Hawfinches etc), a wonderful variety and volume of wildfowl and waders, and plenty of scarcities sprinkled throughout.

Bearded Tit - a scarce but regular autumn migrant at Spurn

Vismig Jay gunning down the Spurn peninsula 

What a place - and in 2024, I was fortunate to spend six working weeks (guiding over 130 lovely clients) there, each very different, and each rich and varied. Already looking forward to the spring....  

Redwing - one of many thousands arriving at Spurn 

Early November was spent intermittently birding on the coast (of course - it was that time of year); back in the suburbs of York, meanwhile, a Great Egret decided to make our neighbourhood home for a while, even landing on our roof on one occasion!

Two and half weeks (from the 9th) in Scotland followed, consisting of a fortnight based at The Grant Arms Hotel in Grantown-on-Spey, bookended by overnighters in Eyemouth. Week one was as Guest Speaker / Guide, with plenty of time to enjoy lots of relaxed birding and much-needed downtime (including plenty of long, lovely trail runs in Anagach Forest), and week two was our fourth School of Birding.

Red-breasted Merganser (above) and Eiders (below) on the Moray coast 

Quite the contrast between the two weeks, and not just in intensity - the first was unseasonably mild and pleasant (and full of birds, naturally!), while the second was snowy, sub-zero and generally Arctic.... which was (mostly) a blessing - despite tricky driving conditions, and extra efforts to make sure everyone was warm enough, the already beautiful landscapes were at their absolute picture postcard premium.

A huge pleasure to deliver, of course, and another class of ten 'graduated' with a much greater skillset and hopefully bucketloads of birding inspiration. More here. The aforementioned Eyemouth stopovers were enjoyable (as always), with a Little Auk themed seawatch on the way back down to England:

One of 24 Little Auks on an early Eyemouth seawatch 

Back home for late November, and some relaxed coastal birding to round off the season; a forgettable December (for various reasons, which don't belong in a birding bulletin!) notwithstanding, a busy, bird-filled, wonderfully rich and varied 2024, for which I'm very grateful. 

Lapland Bunting, Filey, December

Filey, 20th Jan '25

Cold, grey, gloomy and wintry perhaps, but it's been a while since I enjoyed the seasonal solitude of the Brigg, and so a few hours at the coast beckoned.

In all the time I was on the Brigg (just shy of a couple of hours), I was joined by precisely zero other humans, for which I'm very grateful!

(Pics - Grey Heron with spiky lunch, Purple Sandpipers, Red-necked Grebe, Ringed Plover)

Review of the Year, 2024 - part three

Male American Redstart in the garden - Warren, Massachussetts 

This post covers the period July - September 2024. See previous post for preceding months.

After the maelstrom of spring and early summer, July began relatively peacefully, with a couple of survey days, a few days to settle into the new place, and then a great long weekend at Birdfair. It was a busy one for me, with talks, shifts on the stand, and a Zeiss Osprey Walk among other stuff.

My two talks this year were: Filey International - Arrivals and Departures on the Yorkshire Coast, and School of Birding - How to be a Better Birder (with my colleague Simon). The former was, along with my British Birds article earlier in the year, a perfect bookend to my time at Filey, which had come to an end less than a fortnight previously; the latter was a great opportunity to celebrate early successes with our School, which continues to go from strength to strength.

Representing Yorkshire Coast Nature on our stand is a real pleasure, and a great chance to catch up with clients, friends and contemporaries (as well as publicising our various trips in Yorkshire and beyond) . It's also been a pleasure to be part of the Zeiss team for some years now, and BirdFair is a great opportunity to reconnect and catch up with everyone (professionally and off the clock in the evenings!).

Eastern Bluebird at the garden nest-box (more of this family here)

After BirdFair, straight to the States for the summer (well, five full weeks of it at least). Spending quality time with our family in New England is more valuable than ever, and while summer may be the quietest time of year from a birding perspective, there's always plenty to enjoy.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the orchard 

Much of our time was spent in Western Mass. - at the familial home the sticks (near Warren) and with brother Ned and nieces (Greenfield) - as well on a family holiday in Roscoe, NY and with brother Lincoln in Cooperstown, NY. We also got to spend a few days with our dear friends Kat and George in Maine (as we usually do), so, we got around a fair bit.... 

Yellow Warbler in the orchard

Birdwise it was naturally comparatively quiet, but a real bonus was stumbling upon an overgrown orchard / pick-your-own farm behind an abandoned property just a few minutes up the hill from the family home. Undisturbed, off the road, overflowing with food (and often therefore birds), I spent many enjoyable sessions here, particularly towards the end of the trip when migration began to pick up.

Scarlet Tanager in the orchard

Plenty of warblers, tanagers, orioles, grosbeaks, sparrows, towhees, finches and more to enjoy, and I posted several times while out there - more here and here.   

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in the Warren garden

I also got to go birding several times with my dear brother-in-law Ned, which I always look forward to - this time at Parson's Brook (see here) and in the Greenfield area (see here).

Louisiana waterthrush at Parson's Brook, MA (above); Ovenbird in Cooperstown, NY (below). 

Straight back into guiding upon return, with a very busy autumn season kickstarted with a couple of pelagics (more below) and then five days guiding at Spurn for the last week of August. Not surprisingly, it was a blast - it's a great time to catch up with a whole host of common and scarcer waders (in smart plumages) and early land-based migrants as well as various summer visitors - and the weather for much of the week was very pleasant...

.... which often means less migration action, but we were blessed with healthy scatterings of passerines including over-performing Pied and Spotted Flycatchers, Tree Pipits, Redstarts, Whinchats, a Rosefinch, and lots of lemon-yellow Willow Warblers; early season wildfowl were also great value, as were raptors, and the waders were particularly excellent, including a cracking adult Stilt Sandpiper (above).... more here.

Red-backed Shrike, Kilnsea

A few days later and it was time to return, for the Migration Festival over the first (long) weekend of the month. Migfest '24 was a strong contender for the best yet - the atmosphere was great, the events and organisation excellent, the weather kind, and the birds and migration magical. In fact, for a strong contender, read unarguably.

Male Red-breasted Flycatcher, Crown and Anchor, Kilnsea

It's a part of the calendar Rich and I always look forward to, and we (Yorkshire Coast Nature) have supported Migfest since its inception, sponsoring the main talks marquee, leading guided walks, giving talks and the like; of the latter, this year I gave an extended version of my Filey International talk from Birdfair (a bookend to a bookend, then....).

European Bee-eater, Easington

The birds were the best they've been over any Migfest, with the bushes and trees bursting with passerine migrants (counter-intuitively in the warm sunshine...), and much more besides - in fact, too much to summarise here, so better to have a look here instead; suffice to say there were a great many moments that, collectively, will take a lot of beating in the future (watching a Pallid Harrier fly by while a Bee-eater sat on the wires above us being a perfect example...).

Arctic Skua (above) and Pallid Harrier (below) fly past the Bee-eater.... 

But for the regular Humber survey days, the rest of the month was effectively divided between two themes - pelagics and coastal birding. Dealing with the former first, this is I think our tenth year of leading our Seabird and Whale Adventures out of Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast, and it's fair to say it was the most exciting and successful season yet.

Avocets and Black-tailed Godwits at one of my Humber survey sites

I hit the ground running on return from the States, leading a double on 24th August and then a various trips scattered throughout September - and it's fair to say I got very lucky this year; the seas offshore were boiling with food and alive with those tempted to take advantage of it.

Sooty Shearwater and Humpback Whale (above) and Balearic Shearwater (below, with Manxies)

The August double trip was an absolute blinder, with stacks of cetaceans, huge numbers of seabirds, and our first Great Shearwater....

The September trips just kept on providing, each with unique experiences (and lots of happy clients!), including, for example, an unforgettable day of Humpbacks and over a hundred Minkes and many more shearwaters than we've ever had before. What a season!

Humpback by the boat

Finally, then, there was also 'just' regular coastal birding, throughout the month. Except it wasn't just coastal birding, it was often outstanding - and nor was it 'regular', in the sense that, having moved to York, it was all about well-drilled surgical strikes when circumstances and conditions conspired.

Yellow-browed Warbler fresh-in on Carr Naze, Filey

Happily, they did so at several really productive times, and while I no longer have the privilege of walking out the door whenever it looks promising, I have an even more finely-tuned appreciation of Yorkshire coast migration as a result, which I exploited on several memorable occasions throughout the month (and indeed the autumn in general).

Wood Warbler, Bempton

Several days scattered over the latter third of the month were particularly fun, with easterlies, fog and drizzle providing excellent fall conditions and delivering excellent birding onto the coast, and I varied my attentions between multiple patches - Flamborough, Bempton, Buckton, Filey, Gristhorpe and Cayton Bays included.

Another fresh-in Yellow-brow at Filey - every one a precious gem!

I managed to find Dusky Warbler, four Red-breasted Flycatchers (including three together!), Wood Warbler, Barred Warbler, two eastern-type Lesser Whitethroats and a dozen Yellow-browed Warblers among an ever-changing cast of migrants in coastal scrub - a lovely few days back on the coast. (More here and here from those days.) 

Red-breasted Flycatcher - one of three together at Holme's Gut, Flamborough

Part four to follow soon!