Eastern Sub-alpine Warbler at Beachy Head

I've seen several Sub-alpine Warblers over the years but never one of the Eastern form apart from an unconvincing sight of one at Landguard which I decided not to tick at the time so when one was found on 12th at Beachy Head in West Sussex I had one eye on it. News was that the bird was singing which is always a good marker for it sticking a while and the weather also looked good for keeping it there a few days so I continued with my commitments and arranged to pick Jim up at 5am this morning having talked Dad out of the venture due to the expected steep climb back to the car park at Cow Gap.

We made light work of the 88 miles and arrived just before 7am. A walk to the top of the hill and I spotted a birder with a scope down at the cliff top so we set off in that direction in the hope he was either on the bird or knew where it was yesterday. It's quite the walk down but we made it in one piece to the good news that the bird was still there, still calling and in view. We managed to see it in seconds and so the tick was bagged but we settled down to watch the bird for two hours as it went about it's business. The bird was almost constantly singing and was doing a short circuit picking moth lava from bushes and flying back under the bank before repeating the circuit again and again. According to a local there has been issue with tape playing which I don't agree with and I'm pleased to say we saw nobody doing it today although we only saw ten other birders in the three hours we were there.

So Eastern Sub-alpine Warbler comes off my dipped list and onto the life list.

Year list now 206 Life list now 455

Also present were a family of four Stonechat with the young begging for food and being fed. A Lesser Whitethroat was seen whilst looking for the Warbler too and another birder had Black Redstart we I missed it. As we left a Peregrine flew over to cap a nice visit before we started the climb back to the car park which proved my point that it would have been too much for Dad on his metal knees.

Peregrine