I've been doing a monthly woodland bird survey near Colyton for about eight years now - and over the years I've learnt it does throw up the odd surprise. The best bird to date being a Yellow-browed Warbler on 30th October 2007, but I've also had Pied and Spotted Flies, Hobby, Firecrest and several Crossbills here. It's by far the most reliable and best place on patch for Woodcock too, with double figure winter counts not unusual. So far this year it hasn't given me any bonus surprise year ticks, well, until this morning...
Wood Warbler is a ridiculously rare bird on patch. The last record was of an autumn bird on Beer Head on 7-8th August 2006 - Gav found it on the 7th, and he, Ian M and I saw it the following day. Before this, I think there's only been two or three records. I was more than half way round the survey this morning when I thought I heard the distant song of Wood Warbler - this set me off in a sprint! Luckily for me it only had to be a short sprint as I soon found myself looking at an absolute BEAUT of a Wood Warbler....
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| BOOM! |
It then moved into larger more dense trees, and became elusive. It never stopped singing though, even giving several bouts of 'tu tu tu'. After asking permission from the wood owner, I sent a text out and am pleased to say at least two other locals got it. Hopefully Karen has got some 'proper' pictures of it.
I did take this video too, but as you can see it hasn't turned out too well...
Oh yes, something I didn't mention in my previous post was that the Monties was my 249th bird for the patch. I only found this out when I updated my Bubo list. Now I wonder what 250 is going to be....
Right - I must go, I've just shown Jess her fourth species of wild Owl in the UK and she's jumping off the walls! It was a Tawny by the way, and sat up nicely for a couple of minutes in a tree in front of the car.
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