Last week I was guiding every day at the mighty Spurn Bird Observatory, for Yorkshire Coast Nature, with a different team of six (consistently lovely) clients every day. This is my fifth year running my Migration Day Specials on Spurn's hallowed soil, and last year I spent a total of six working weeks, guiding a total of 130 clients, there; more like four weeks this year, but happily it's still occupied a substantial part of my migration-seasonal guiding.
Yellow-browed Warblers
But for a few notable exceptions, it has to be said that this autumn has been very much on the low-key side for migration on the coast, and so as the week approached, the forecast was checked with increasing regularity... would it remain south-westerly with associated tumbleweed, or would there finally be a whiff of high pressure over Scandinavia with a subsequent 'unblocking' of the build-up of birds there, waiting to cross the North Sea?
Male Brambling
Thank the birding gods, it was the very much the latter, with immaculate timing. As I drove into Kilnsea just as it was getting light on Monday morning, the unmistakable form of thrushes began to materialise out of the gloom - game on!
Goldcrests
Thus the theme of the week was, well, exactly what I hoped for during our late autumn days there - mass arrivals from the continent, in all their mercurial glory. Monday was a big day, and all subsequent days not only hosted new arrivals, but great conditions to fully enjoy what had already arrived, feeding up and showing well in calm conditions; and then Friday came around, which saw another large-scale floodgate opening of thousands of thrushes, with associated species in good numbers.
While there was nothing particularly rare this time (who cares?), there were constant, numerous opportunities to revel in a wide sprectrum of incoming migrants from far and wide, and that's effectively the perfect scenario - it's all about the context, the spectacle, and the uniqueness of the place and its birds.
Highlights included thousands upon thousands of thrushes - the majority Redwings, but big numbers of Blackbirds, Fieldfares and Song Thrushes, as well as Mistle Thrushes and Ring Ouzels; many Goldcrests, often so tame as to be just centimetres away; Woodcocks, Great Egrets, Peregrines, Spotted Redshank, Curlew Sandpiper;
tens of thousands of waders on the Humber; multiple Yellow-browed Warblers (a team target on several days, and several found by the team!); Jack Snipe; many Bramblings, often giving great views; Short-eared Owl, Twite with a Linnet flock, Hawfinch, Great Northern Diver....
Redwings and Blackbirds in the Obs garden (above), Brambling (likewise, below)
.... and lots more besides. Quite a week, as it always is at this time of year at Spurn. Thanks as always to the locals for being so helpful and accommodating - it really makes a huge difference ;-)
Yellow-browed Warbler (above), Whooper Swans over the Humber (below)
Bramblings arriving in off the sea
