Bempton Cliffs

My breeding bird survey started at 4:10am this morning and by 9:30am my working day was over until tomorrow morning, so it was either spend the day in my hotel room or find somewhere to go birding. In those circumstances it's hard not to elect to go to Bempton Cliffs and get my annual dose of seabirds.

Seabird colonies fill every sense, but especially those of sight, hearing and smell. What great places they are! Bempton Cliffs is by far the best and most accessible UK mainland colony. Ok you could argue that Clo Mor on Cape Wrath has many more puffins, or more perhaps even more birds in general, but I've been to Clo Mor and it's not exactly accessible to the majority of people in Scotland let alone the rest of the UK.

Where Bempton Cliffs really excel is with the gannets. To the best of my knowledge, this is still the only mainland gannet colony in the UK, and it's an impressive place with upwards of 10,000 pairs. I did once visit the Bass Rock in the days when you could land on the island and walk amongst the birds, but these days there can't be too many colonies where you can get much closer than this.

Singing Icterine warbler on a BBS

Photos: Icterine warbler, © WC Aspin. 

A remarkable Breeding Bird Survey this morning, I found a singing male icterine warbler in a hedge in eastern England. 

I was on site at 4:10am and began my trek around the fields. Just the usual, depressingly familiar, big empty fields and largely silent hedgerows. Then I came to a stream, lined with bushes and adjacent marshy ground. This looked more promising and I followed a track along the stream until I came to a pond with tall trees. Suddenly I heard a song which I didn't recognise. My first thought was marsh warbler and I tried a bit of playback which the bird seemed to respond to, but I wasn't convinced, something didn't seem right. Thankfully I decided to record the song on my phone.

Over the next hour I had fleeting glimpses of what seemed to be a largish yellow looking warbler flitting around the bushes or occasionally flying but though it was vocal, it was very skulking. Finally I nailed it with two brief but excellent views of a singing, lemon yellow bird with pale lores and a pale bill. But this was no marsh warbler, it looked more like icterine! Then it was gone.

I had very limited experience of hearing marsh warbler in song and I'd never heard singing icterine previously, so I needed a second opinion. I had no photos but I had recorded it's song which I sent off to some colleagues. After a short while they got back to me. There was no doubt about it, it was a singing icterine warbler.

The species is at best a very rare breeding bird in the UK, with probably less than five singing males annually and the majority of these are just singing passage birds at coastal localities or in the extremities of the country, especially Shetland. To find a singing bird at an inland site with such good looking habitat was very exciting.

The habitat certainly looks good for breeding icterine, an unmanaged species rich hedge along a stream with an adjacent pond, scattered willow trees and sunny marshy glades, set in the middle of a large area of arable farmland at least 30 miles from the coast. The bird was clearly on territory flying around a circuit singing in favoured bushes but always returning to one bush in particular, where it spent the majority of it's time. Apart from brief flight views as it moved around, it was very difficult to see, usually immediately disappearing into whichever bush or tree it landed.

The song was energetic, loud and variable but always seemed to start with a starling like 'shrr, shrr, shrr' and include a nasal shrill 'chi chi chi chi voooi'. There was much mimicry and repetition in the song, recalling song thrush, and given the fact that there were at least a couple of song thrushes singing in the same area, I wasn't sure if the bird was actually mimicking them or whether this was just part of it's normal song, but whatever the truth, it all added to the mix and at times created some uncertainty as to exactly which bird was singing. It was an altogether magical experience which at times seemed quite surreal, to be standing in an oasis in the middle of relatively barren farmland listening to icterine warbler singing in amongst all of the other bird song which included blackcap, lesser whitethroat, blackbirds, wrens and robins and with hobby and red kites occasionally hunting overhead. 

It all looks very promising, except perhaps there is one vital element missing - a female. I certainly didn't see or hear her, but hopefully she is there hidden somewhere. The male was difficult enough to see when in full song, so I would imagine that a silent female would be all but impossible. 

Obviously I'm not going to reveal exactly where this is, quite apart from the fact it's on private land, it's also a potentially extremely rare breeding bird. Best I can say is it's at a site east of York. I've got several more surveys planned to this site and it will be interesting to see if the bird is still present.

Edit 30/05/2024: This morning I was joined by a colleague, Bill Aspin and fortunately his transect route also went past this same area so we arranged to meet up. The bird was in full song again and showed a lot better, though still difficult, and he was able to fire off the photos at the top of this post. 

Edit 06/06/2024: the icterine warbler was still present this morning and singing lustily. I had my best views so far of the bird as it moved around its territory, such a beautiful bird, for the first time I actually noticed the pale panel in the wing and the lemon yellow on it's underparts really stood out today. I don't know whether prolonged singing indicates the presence of a female or just an increasingly desperate and lonely male but the fact that it's been here for a minimum of nine days now is surely at least encouraging! Trouble is, I'm not sure how we will ever prove the presence of a female without seeing the offspring, but just enjoy it while I can I suppose. 

Edit 07/06/2024: Icterine warbler heard singing briefly by a colleague. 

Edit 18/06/2024: First visit to the site since 07/06 and colleague reports no sign of icterine during an early evening visit.

Edit 26/06/2024: First visit to the site since 18/06, no sign of icterine at dawn for me. Presumably gone, or perhaps just stopped singing.

It's a lovely spot this, even on a misty morning with the buttercups gone. Still feels good for a breeding icterine!

Sanderling at the flash - the wader fest continues

Waders are on the move and today an early morning visit came up trumps again with two sanderling and a dunlin on the sailing club shore. Later in the afternoon the sanderling had gone to be replaced by a common sandpiper. Sadly water levels are now high and the only shoreline available to waders is at the sailing club which gets disturbance from early morning dogs walkers so if you're not there very early, chances are you've missed the best birds of the day.

Turnstones and dunlin, Pennington Flash

Fourteen dunlin were on the sailing club foreshore this morning until they were flushed by a dog walker and left. A site record for me, they were all in breeding plumage. 

Then mid-morning there were four turnstones including two cracking breeding plumage birds on the spit. I did have a quick look at the spit first thing and didn't see them so chances are they arrived later.

Y Foel Lus

We had a truly spectacular walk from our holiday cottage this morning, taking in Y Foel lus, a 300m+ hill above Penmaenmawr. There was a low mist over the coast, but up here we were above the mist and it was almost like being in the high mountains looking down on the clouds. 

Llandudno sits on a flat piece of low lying land that was laid down by the River Conwy at the point where it enters the sea and it connects the Great Orme, which at times of higher sea levels would actually be an island, to the mainland. In the photo above the mist covering Llandudno really shows this well, with the Orme revealed in it's true light.

The mist didn't stretch far inland, covering only about half of Dwygyfylchi, just over a mile from the coast. Our holiday cottage is down there somewhere.

Sychnant Pass

Sychannt Pass is a spectacular pass that lies between Conwy and Penmaenmawr, and conveniently situated for us being just a short, if steep, walk from our holiday cottage in the village of Dwygyfylchi. Plenty of birds here, including pied flycatchers, redstarts, choughs, cuckoos and stonechats.

The woods around the conservation centre at Pensychannt have nest boxes for pied flycatchers. I also accidently flushed a tawny owl here, it was perched in a bush within the woodland.

Aber Falls

On our way for a long weekend with family near Penmaenmawr today, we called in at Aber Falls where we had a lovely walk and saw a few new birds for the year including at least three singing redstarts. Other year ticks were cuckoo and garden warbler.

Hoary rockrose, Great Orme

In the UK hoary rockrose is almost exclusively found in coastal North Wales, though I have also seen it in Teesdale.

Now is a great time for seeing it on the Great Orme, along with many other plants such as common rockrose, bloody cranesbill, primrose and cowslips.

Red kite over Rainford, a St Helens first for me

I was watching cricket at Rainford today when a red kite flew over. Seems a very matter of fact way of putting it, but the truth is, despite red kites now apparently being all around us, this was the first that I have seen in St Helens and also a first for Merseyside for me. I don't know why, but both Merseyside and Greater Manchester seem to be no-go areas for red kites. I'm sure it's only a matter of time...

Rainford area

I've been spending a lot of time in the Rainford area this spring since I returned from India, mainly because it's been so good as opposed to Pennington Flash which has been pretty dull. The main places we bird are Dairy Farm Road, just off the Rainford bypass, Old Coach Road and Moss Lane which is near Liverpool St Helens RUFC.

Highlights have been a pair of whinchats along Dairy Farm Road on 2nd May, female marsh harrier (only my second ever in St Helens) on 10th May and red kite over Rainford cricket club the following day. The latter I will discuss in a separate post.

Four ravens chased each other over Moss Lane on 9th May, where there is also a pair of stonechats.

Little owls have put in a good showing this spring, I know of at least two, possibly three sites for them.

Grasshopper warbler on the Ruck

A grasshopper warbler was singing just above the leaning posts on the Ruck at Pennington Flash this morning.