Spurn Point

Spurn Point- one of the best places in Britain to see visible migration.

After lots of research last night and tips from Michael Flowers (Twitter name @MJFlowers1) it was time to travel to Spurn for the first time.

From the visitor centre at Spurn, it takes a surprisingly long time to get to the actual point. Eventually we arrived at Point Car park and before we even left the car we spotted 2 Wheatears on a wall and several Ringed Plovers on the beach.

Firstly, thanks to a tip off from Michael, we went to a grassed area near the radar tower. More Wheatears were spotted here, and rabbits, Dunnocks, blackbirds, Goldfinches and beautiful Linnets! We then walked through the scrub, being careful to avoid the irritant Brown tail moth caterpillars and practically carpeted the sand.

Here we found more blackbirds and Linnets, Swallows, Peacock Butterflies, and two Whitethroats! After exploring the WW1 derelict buildings we cam back round to the Grassed area where i found loads more Wheatears, Pied Wagtails, Linnets, Swallows, a Magpie and what I think was a Meadow Pipit though Im not positive. Heres a pic of the unknown pipit.

We then got back in the car and went to the Chalk Bank hides. Here we were pleasantly surprised to see a flock of 31 Brent Geese, a bird which I assumed would have left Spurn and its other wintering grounds by now, and would be at or on its way to its breeding grounds. Scanning the mudflats again, we found many Curlew and another smaller wader which we think was a Dunlin. Later we found hundreds of Brent geese much further out. They were great to see as I'd only ever seen them once before at Donna Nook.

We then left this hide and found a hunting Kestrel as we were walking back to the car. Next, and fiinally, we went to the Canal Scrape Hide. As soon as we were entered we were directed by the other birders to a stunning drake Garganey- WOW!!

Like the Geese, i'd only ever seen a Garganey once before and it was quite far away.. This one however, although tucked into the reeds, gave us good enough views to see the cream white eye stripe.

Gorgeous.

We continued to watch the Garganey and also saw all 3 Hirundines, Mallards, fighting Coots, and a Reed Bunting. Then, 6 Golden-Orioleley bright yellow birds flew in and landed in the on the outskirts of the reeds. They were Yellow Wagtails. Again, only my second sighting. Actually, I saw my first yesterday! WOW!!

One of them landed just a metre or so from the hide and allowed me to taker todays blip.

What a great day!! See some of the days photos on my Flickr site.

P.S: This is a back blip. On Sunday I saw my first Y Wagtail and was gonna use that for Sundays Blip but it was a rubbish photo. On Monday I got better views so have used a Y Wagtail for Mondays Blip rather than Sundays.. Does that make sense....??