News of this came through more than a week ago. Being at work meant an agonising two days of hoping it wouldn’t fly on. I’d also booked to go to Bournemouth on the weekend, so had to decide whether to detour north first.
A bit of a no-brainer really. The chance of a lifer just ten miles away trumps everything, so there I was pulling into my usual Severn Beach parking area only to find it full. That was a good omen. Also good were scopes and cameras trained on some spot near the sea wall. I hurried to join them.
Now they weren’t quite so concentrated.
“It flew off down there.” My first contact waved an arm downstream.
Shit.
In my haste I hadn’t unloaded my own scope and now it looked necessary. But the roundabout of fortune kept turning and by the time I’d equipped myself, all eyes were again focussed.
I scanned in that direction. “Where is it?” I had to ask finally.
“In the grass, there.”
In the grass?
In the middle of a thin strip some ten metres wide right in front of us posed the bird, completely unfazed by the crowd and its celebrity. It strutted its stuff and binoculars were sufficient to capture mask, sandy brown tones, tertial fringes and even the impression that it was wearing a pale buff wig.
As the name suggests, the species should be no closer than North Africa, even in summer, where it’s more or less resident. This short-distance migrant was, admittedly in the mildest of Decembers, a thousand miles errant. A bigger surprise is that birds turn up on our shores several times a year so it’s kind of sub-mega. Even so this one attracted a steady stream of onlookers.
And started my weekend well as lifer number 1,086 and of course an addition to the Avon list. The detour didn’t even delay my trip by much and I could work Sutton Bingham reservoir on the southern edge of Somerset. The time wasn’t needed: the site had few access points and no birds of note.
Continuing to Dorset and Morden Bog in Wareham Forest didn’t improve matters. A great grey shrike was supposed to be present but in the gloaming I drew another blank. The walk was fine, and atmospheric, and it truly was a bog. Don’t stray too far from the path there!
The day after was a desperate washout, starting with drizzle and high winds at Boscombe, where I’d previously logged Dartford warbler. The sea raced up the beach, then solid rain, fog, gales and flooding roads kicked in as I recrossed Dorset. Yes, a repeat of last time. My final stop overlooked tremendous waves at Eype, west of Bridport.
The continuing fog and incipient darkness though persuaded me that a return to Bristol was wisest.