Back from 2.5 weeks on Scilly (more on that later) and straight up the cliffs first thing. Light Westerly winds over night and a still morning didn’t seem like such a poor situation after the amount of decent birds up the East coast in recent days, It turned out to be an excellent day.
Highlighted by a Hume’s warbler and a Pallid Harrier.
The Hume’s was in the clearing to the North of Top wood, it showed well on 2 occasions and badly on another but was mostly silent at first. later on, whilst a larger group assembled, the bird was much less showy but more vocal and I saw it in a range of lighting situations, its a species I’ve been trying to find here since before moving so Very happy with that!
The Pallid Harrier initially gave a very brief fly past whilst Russ B and I were looking for the Hume’s in the clearing, I did a double take, as views were poor brief and into the light but I thought it looked small, bright and flacon like and ran out of the clearing after it but no harrier could be seen. Half an hour later it did the same again but gave a better view and I legged it after it again and got really good views of it moving towards Wanstone farm at hunting height, getting mobbed by crows then lost to view over the farm woodland.
Other notables were a juvenile Hen harrier (below) over the top fields first thing, a Yellow Browed warbler to the East of Top wood, 2 Ring Ouzels and 3 or 4 Brambling
These reports really brighten up my day and really make me try harder when I go out birding , Manchester is not quite as lucky with birds but your reports make up for it .
cheers
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