Last autumn saw the biggest number of American passerines to ever appear on our shores with mega rarities from Scilly to Shetland and so it was hoped that during the winter some more would be unearthed.
A Northern Waterthrush in Essex wasn’t what I’d hoped for as I’d seen the Scilly bird back in 2011 but then news broke on the 20th February of a Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler visiting a garden in Ayrshire. This one I did need having not being able to get up for the last mainland bird in Durham 10 years previously.
Plans were made to head up with Chris Sharp but they were cancelled when he was told he had ‘his own surprise’ retirement party to attend!
More plans were then made with Brendon Fagan and Ricky Flesher and so at 5am we headed north but not straight to Scotland but first to County Durham. We had a quick stop at Barnard Castle not to check our eyesight but to try for Dipper. Sadly the river level was too high and so we struck out.
Langdon Beck was our next stop. This was a new site for me and looked very impressive and even more so when we spotted a couple of nice male Black Grouse. These were embarrassingly my first since I ticked them in Scotland way back in 1991! Further down the road we did see a Dipper on a small river and then Rick picked out a Red Grouse. A Barn Owl flying just after 11am was a bit of a surprise as were displaying Curlew which I can’t recall having seen before.
After our fill in England we headed north of the border and arrived at Kilwinning just after 3pm. We parked up, crossed the road and walked through 2 sets of doors in a housing block and into the tiny garden where we joined 4 other birders. After a couple of minutes we heard a call very reminiscent of Long-tailed Tit but it was coming from a pale bird with a yellow rump! Eventually it came down to feed on the numerous bird feeders and showed brilliantly on and off. I was watching my first ever YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER which was my 9th species of American wood warbler (my favourite family group).
After taking it in for about half an hour we moved onto Saltcoats. Here we checked the harbour for Black Guillemots but they weren’t around. 3 Purple Sandpiper were thought along with many Eider and a handful of year ticks out at sea. By now we were all knackered and hungry so retired to our hotel for dinner and sleep.
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