When a Green Warbler (recent split from Greenish) was discovered in Buckton, east Yorkshire I was in deepest Cornwall so the chances to see the first twitchable bird of this species on British mainland was zero. It caused a mega twitch which looked to have turned rather messy with birders rushing the bird and getting very shirty with each other. I was glad I was out of the way to be honest. After getting home on Saturday afternoon, I checked social media and it seemed the crowds had reduced so I decided to get up as usual and if reported straight away I'd give it a go.
With it being a Sunday the roads were pretty quiet and I had no hold ups, the car park was actually ok which was a pleasant surprise. The advertised 1km walk did seem much further but you can hardly complain when you have Gannets streaming past you.
The ninth record for Britain was in a small copse around 500 metres in front of the costal path. It was a case of find a good view and be patient. There was an early shout of a sighting but I was at the wrong angle and it took over an hour for me to finally spot the bird well enough to see this small warbler that breeds in north Turkey & Iran. I did spend another hour there where I got one further decent view of the bird. The bird had very strong face markings, wing bar and quite bright compared to other autumn warblers. The bird moved very fast which probably was the reason it was so difficult to pin down.
Other birds in and around the copse included a female Redstart, Willow Warblers, Robin, Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon, Wren and a Blackbird.
This year continues to be an amazing one for rare birds. With Autumn now picking up who knows whats next around the corner.
Many thanks to David Carr who kindly sent me the above images of the bird.
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