American Robin kickstarts 2022 twitching year

 

 

American Robin gives me the perfect pose

 

What a beauty

Red circles indicate areas seen often, 

green is where birders are meeting as seen below

Residents of Hill Road get an unusal welcome

As a rule I have my phone on silent when I'm working and then flick through any alerts when I take a break. Last Tuesday I working through emails when I could see messages and alerts suddenly building up on my home screen. I had to take a look, and it seemed an American Robin had been discovered in Eastbourne. A quick check on the maps revealed journey time was 3 hour 15 minutes, about the same as Spurn, I can do this. So I informed the boss I needed some emergency leave, checked with the Squire (couldn't go until weekend which I couldn't do) and a plan was hatched to leave on first news in the morning if it was still there.

By 8.00am I was on the M40 heading south. Solo twitches can be very dull but I tend to mix journey up with a few podcasts and some new music. The Red Kites are always good to pass 40 minutes trying to count (22 on way down, 41 on return). The traffic was very kind until just outside Eastbourne, East Sussex where I had a 25 minutes delay due to road widening.

I followed the directions until I started to see the colour of the pedistrains change to khaki and I safely parked in the residential area. Birding in residential area is never easy, locals must have had quite a shock as a handful of birders increased very quickly. 

A friendly birder informed me on arrival that the bird had been showing well on & off and it was out of view behind the houses. I made the most of the twenty minutes wait by eating my lunch and enjoying the winter sunshine. Then the bird took flight over the house to land in another garden. Initially in full cover, it popped out when the postman walked past it. YESSSSSS........what a cracker. This first winter American Robin showed brilliantly and I was at perfect angle to get a few nice record shots.

For those readers who don't know, the American Robin is actually a thrush and is close to a blackbird size than our Eurasian Robin. There has been 24 previous records in Britain this was most definatley my first. I had seen many on visits to USA, where they are a common garden bird, again like our Blackbird. A resident informed me the bird had been around for three weeks and given the supply of berries I'm sure it will hang around if it can avoid the local Sparrowhawk. 

I do hope the visiting birders continue to behave and not push the patience of the very understanding residents.