Brian's birding blog: Barred Warbler and Olive-backed Pipit

Saturday 20 September 2014

Barred Warbler and Olive-backed Pipit

After breakfast today we made the short journey to the coast and parked up at the coast guards hut at Cley.
For some strange reason I had decided that today would be a good day to walk to Blakeney point which for those that don't know is a long shingle spit that has a good record for attracting migrants. I walked the shingle bank for what seemed like miles. On the sea I had a few groups of Brent Geese pass with a small group of Common Scoter. An Arctic Skua came quite close to chase the Common & Sandwich Terns and I also had a few Gannets fishing close in.

The walk to Blakeney Point reveals more than a few birds

Lobster pots

Fishing kit

Arctic Skua at Blakeney

On the beach were lot's of Wheatear and Meadow Pipit along with a few Reed Bunting and Siskin.
Single Blackbird and Song Thrush also passed through with some Chaffinch and a few Siskins.
The Pallid Harrier of yesterday failed to show and despite good conditions no "good" birds were found.

Next stop was Salthouse where I parked along beach road (with the car park still a pile of shingle following the storm damage) and made the short walk east to Gramborough Hill where I found a couple of familiar faces (John and Barry) already on site and they reported that both the Barred warbler and Yellow-browed warbler had just shown very well. After a couple of minutes I was also enjoying good views of both birds and this Barred is a whopper!
I enjoyed watching the bird with the gathered group and then decided I would move to the far side and hope that the bird would show at some point in what little light I could find to help the camera and to my delight after a while the bird came out and gave me a real show (makes up for the six hours so far this year looking at bushes waiting for Barred to show) After this exclusive display I left and had lunch with Suzanne and walked Tia before a short stop at Wells where I again bumped into John & Barry who'd put in several hours by now looking for the reported Olive-backed Pipit. As I approached I could see the gathered twitchers getting excited and sure enough I was on the target before I'd even said hello. the bird was feeding along a small sandy path within the trees and showed quite well but in the darkness of the trees so I left the camera in the bag.