It took a while to get there, but all's well that ends well, eh? As regular readers know, I'm not much of a twitcher, but when it's such a dream bird and it's likely the one and only time it's going to grace your coastline in a lifetime, then the stakes inevitably rise....
It's been an increasingly frustrating few days, with the first (explosive) report from Tophill Low coming out some time after the bird had departed from its cheeky half-hour feeding session over O reservoir (for presumably benign reasons, knowing the good people there) on Wednesday.
Its subsequent appearance at Bempton Cliffs several hours later was just too late for me to realistically make it before dusk, even if the A64 was on my side and traffic coppers were elsewhere. At least a couple of good friends connected and I could enjoy it vicariously....
Last seen attempting to alight on the cliffs to roost - and with god knows how many people* lining the clifftop path, waiting for it to reappear in the twilight of the following morning's pre-dawn - it was, amazingly, reported from Aberdeenshire (!) a few hours later - that's a hell of journey for anyone, but when you're a Needletail, all bets are off....
(*edit - apparently over 300)
Then, nothing. Fast forward to yesterday evening, and incredibly, it'd returned to the Yorkshire coast; this time to Filey, but the reporting of its presence was delayed long enough to put many hopefuls out of the race, and resulted in an aborted attempt to make it over there after a long-ass day at work before the sun went down and the bird drifted away. So close, so far away...
But the birding gods were clearly in justice-delivering mood, at least where I was concerned, and today was another day. I was working from home in the morning, the Mrs had a rare weekday off, and we were planning on an afternoon trip over the coast. Mid-morning, and hello! - guess what's buzzing around the Castle in Scarborough? Reported swiftly via the bird news services (thanks Ben, and well done!) I, er, strongly encouraged us to bring our journey forward by a couple of hours....
An hour or so later (via some nerve-shreddingly slow traffic) and we parked up on Marine Drive - and above us, in blue skies and skimming just above the crumbled sandstone walls of the castle, there it was. We enjoyed a perfect half hour with the bird, feeding right over our heads after we'd hiked up the side path most of the way up Castle Hill, with ideal weather, a small number of chilled fellow birders, and what turned out to be immaculate timing - by midday, it'd drifted north and beyond the town, for destinations unknown.
Celebratory lunch followed by ice-cream (soft scoop lemon from the Harbour Bar, of course) and a stroll around the harbour followed, bookending a pretty much perfect conclusion to a nervily arduous couple of days. A great bird, and a great day, on our beloved Yorkshire coast. 
