A Franklin's Gull at Winchester - 12th November 2026

Franklin's Gull is native to North America, breeding in central Canada as well as adjacent northern states of the USA and wintering off the west coast of southern Mexico and Central and South America where it is common from Ecuador to Chile. The species bears the name of Sir James Franklin who first discovered it during one of his Arctic expeditions  in 1825. 

It is a rare vagrant to northwest Europe with 87 being recorded in Britain before the discovery of this latest individual at Winchester in Hampshire on Tuesday the 10th of November. It was associating with around a dozen Black headed Gulls and favouring one particular field alongside a narrow lane called Lanham Lane on the outskirts of Winchester. Popular opinion has suggested it is a second winter bird that was seen on the Isle of Wight in August and then moved to Dorset and various other private sites along the south coast, usually associating with Black headed Gulls.

I personally have seen five Franklin's Gulls in Britain, the last being at Crossness in Bexley, Kent on the 16th of July 2024. I have even had the good fortune to see one in the gull roost at my local Farmoor Reservoir that visited from the 17th to the 28th of August 2002 while it completed the moult of its flight feathers.

Wednesday the 11th of November was a day of change weather wise .Gone were the mild temperatures and cold nights bringing a succession of depressing fog bound mornings and grey skies.An abrupt falling of temperature and clear nights heralded sunshine, blue skies and frost in the mornings that followed.

Enthused by the sunshine I determined to try and see the Franklin's Gull at Winchester which was an hour and half's drive south from my home and would be relatively easy to achieve. I so wanted to be out birding but social commitments prevented any chance of this and the earliest I could get away would be Thursday. 

The question though was would the gull still be there

I determined to wait for news of its continued presence on Thursday as it seemed to be seen more reliably in the afternoon, so was taken by surprise to see a report of it being in the favoured field at around 9.45am.

I set off immediately on the ninety minute drive to Winchester which was pleasant enough as it was after the rush hour traffic around Oxford had dispersed and turning off the southbound A34 I found myself following minor roads that seemed to get ever narrower as I approached Lanham Lane

I drove up the lane which was so narrrow two cars could not pass without one pulling over. There was a large farm field on my right protected by a hedge, could this be the field the gull favoured? Birdguides suggested it was as their app was telling me I had reached my destination.

But where to park the car? I certainly could not leave it in the lane. Salvation appeared in the form of a very nice lady walking her dog who told told me to park in a road of houses opposite,which I duly did, got my gear together and walked back to Lanham Lane and passed through a narrow gap in the hedge which the lady had also pointed out. This brought me onto a public footpath with around a dozen birders scanning across the extensive field which looked like it was sown with grass or winter wheat but to all extents was bare.

A small number of Black headed Gulls were flying up and down the field although not nearly as many as I had imagined, say no more than half a dozen, scattered over the field presumably looking for worms. I asked a nearby birder if the Franklin's was present and was told it was, but it had just landed on the ground in the middle of the field but out of sight due to the topography. We were at some elevation, in a landscape of rolling contours and the field sloped downwards from left to right but where we stood looking across the field it rose to a ridge, and beyond but not visible was the gull on the ground.

I walked further alongside the upward sloping side of the field and followed the path as it turned at right angles to pass across the top end of the field. Stopping here I could now see down the entire length of the field  and there was the Franklin's Gull standing alone in the middle.

After a short while it took off and commenced patrolling the field in a languid flight, covering virtually the whole area. It looked marginally smaller and more compact than the Black headed Gulls and its upperparts were noticeably darker grey, contrasting with the white border to its wings making it relatively easy to pick out in flight. Depending on the light it had a partial, dusky grey or black hood across the crown of its head with a noticeable white ring round each eye making it look almost as if it were wearing spectacles. Its wing tips were black with five distinct white mirrors and its bill was a dull, straw yellow.

It continued to cruise round and round the field, sometimes low and sometimes higher in the sky, riding the strong and bitterly cold north wind with ease and grace, every so often dropping down to earth to pick off invisible prey - possibly worms although it was impossible to tell  

And this for the next hour was what I  watched it do apart from a couple of absences when it flew off high in the sky and out of sight only to eventually return but for the most part it was virtually on continuous show on and above its favourite field.

Whilst standing on the muddy footpath it became apparent how popular it was for dog walkers, even joggers. Some stopped to enquire of us what all the fuss was about so we told them about the rare gull that was gracing the field. 

The Franklin's Gull never came really close to me and the other birders on the footpath, restricted as we were to the footpath and, loathe to trespass on the farmland, we could not approach it nor would we want to for fear of disturbing it so I did my best to cope with its distant presence and the harsh midday sunlight, both of which put paid to any photographic masterpieces on my part.

I should add it was not an unpleasant vista that lay before me, looking down the field.The multi coloured autumnal trees that bordered the field and beyond formed a pleasing contrast to the sunlit white gulls. As far as I could see was an impressionist like swathe of varied colours. Leaves turned to yellow, orange, burgundy or brown, of varying hues and intensity with dense evergreens by way of contrast.So many leaves yet to fall.Sadly any extended zen like contemplation was precluded by the relentless cold wind that after an hour began to enter my bones and make my fingertips ache and grow numb even through my woollen gloves. 

By 2pm I had to concede to the cold wind. Watching the Franklins Gull was no longer the enjoyable experience I had felt on my arrival but now almost an endurance test. I am always reluctant to leave a rare bird but you know when the time has come to call it a day and for me this was that time.

I walked back through the gap in the hedge and found shelter from the wind on the other side and felt the sun warm on my face.

An Eastern Bonelli's Warbler at Easington - 7th November 2026

c Tom Hines

In 1997 Bonelli's Warbler was split into two species, Western Bonelli's Warbler (WBW) and Eastern Bonelli's Warbler (EBW) of which the former was much the more frequent in Britain which is unsurprising as EBW's population of between 15000-40000 pairs represents only 1% of the WBW's population. To date there have been 191 accepted records of Western Bonelli's Warbler in Britain compared to only 11 accepted records of Eastern Bonelli's Warbler with an additional 93 individuals indeterminate as to species.

Personally I have seen five Western Bonelli's Warblers, two of which I saw on Shetland this autumn but I have never seen an Eastern Bonelli's Warbler so was naturally very keen on checking out a bird thought to be an Eastern Bonelli's Warbler that had been found at Easington in East Yorkshire.

In the field the two species appear almost identical and the main criteria for distinguishing them is by their diagnostic calls - a  hard, sharp chip note, a bit like a sparrow in the case of Eastern and a disyllabic hu-it in the case of Western Bonelli's Warbler

When first discovered an individual Bonelli's is usually not identified to species unless it calls. Often an extended wait ensues to hear it call and if the bird never calls it has to remain as a Bonelli's Warbler sp.

A Bonelli's Warbler sp. was discovered in an apple tree in a back garden at Easington, East Yorkshire on the 6th of November but eventually it was heard to the call like an Eastern and this made up my mind to go for it. After all there are only eleven accepted records of an EBW for Britain so this was a very rare bird, a true mega in every sense of the word and having never seen one in Britain this provided me with even more of an incentive to go and try to see it.

There was however a cloud on my birding horizon.Throughout Friday the bird had been viewed from a field of rough grass that backed onto a garden containing a large apple tree that the warbler much favoured.However the brother of the owner of the field objected to birders being in the field and called the police and it all got a bit fraught, resulting in everyone being banished from the field.The prospects did not sound good for Saturday although representations were going to be made to the owner of the field by Spurn Bird Observatory to try and gain temporary permisssion for birders to enter the field to view the apple tree.

However the favoured apple tree was still visible, albeit more distantly from a grassed area outside the field's boundary hedge by Seaside Road, although a scope would probably be necessary. I considered  this unwelcome news and my resolve briefly wavered but this would be a new bird for me and in the end I decided to take a chance and go, planning to get to Easington early on Saturday morning.

It is almost a four hour drive from my home to Easington  which lies on the Spurn Peninsula in East Yorkshire so if I wanted to get there early i.e shortly after dawn I would need to leave my home at around 4am.

The alarm duly awoke me at the given hour and I got ready to leave, having put all my gear on the kitchen table in readiness, the night before. On getting outside I was confronted with thick fog reducing visibility to an alarming extent and making driving hazardous on the rural lanes around our village that are conspicuously devoid of street lights. My village is situated at one of the highest points in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds and I reasoned that maybe on getting to a lower elevation the fog might clear but for now I was reduced to driving at twenty miles per hour but thankfully at this unsociable time there were no other vehicles around.

Heading for Chipping Norton there came several points where I was inclined to turn back and forget about Easington but on getting to the town the fog had cleared somewhat and I felt more optimistic about the long drive confronting me although the fog persisted  in varying densities for another hour until I joined the northbound M1 motorway.After that it was the usual slog north for many miles before turning off onto the M18 and then the M62, heading for Hull.

To while away the hours it is sometimes my custom to listen  to BBC Radio Four Extra as they often repeat classic radio plays from years ago and today's wee hours gem was 'Return from Mars', one of those BBC radio science fiction classics so outdated it is entertaining. It is hard now to believe, with such a plethora of sophisticated media choices available how limited radio and tv was all those years ago. 

Tiredness and the stress of the earlier driving in fog forced me to a stop in a services near Doncaster and seeking a quiet corner at the back of the services I slept in the car for half an hour. I awoke to catch the end of 'Return from Mars' and refreshed rejoined the highway of hell and made for Hull, passing under the huge bridge that crossed the mighty Humber Estuary to my right. It was now dawn, greeting me cold and grey and dampening my spirits.

There is a new ring road of sorts through the southern outskirts of Hull which I traversed untroubled and easily through a mixture of older parts of the city and the more contemporry ugliness of industrial Hull and its docks, making my way towards the road leading to Spurn.

It was obvious there was going to be no sun today and a dank, grey atmosphere suffused the flat land for miles around as I headed east out of Hull.

It always seems to take forever to get anywhere on the road to Spurn with its succession of speed restrictions but at last I  arrived in Easington. Finding Seaside Road was easy as it was the road out of Easington to Spurn and my fear of a big crowd coming to see the warbler proved groundless as I saw no more than half a dozen birders standing on the grass by the road,  looking through a gap in the hedge to the apple tree some fifty metres across the now out of bounds field.

The view through the hedge from outside the field with the
apple tree visible beyond the fence and shed roof

I parked my car at the side of the road, got my stuff together and joined the birders by the hedge, leaving my camera in the car as it would be of little use at the range I would be looking from..

The time was just after 8am. It was fresh but not cold and there was only a light wind from the northeast.I set up my scope and prepared to embark on however long it took to see the EBW, assuming it was still here and had not moved on. Enquiries to my fellow birders told me that last night had seen dense fog here too and this suggested that the EBW would not have departed overnight, however the warbler had not so far been seen today in the first hour and a half of daylight.

The apple tree, still bearing a scattering of large, bright red apples was proving attractive to a good number of Blackbirds tucking into the apples with relish. A Woodcock, presumably having arrived from the adjacent sea, passed above our heads and flew inland over the houses beside the road and a scattering of migrant Bramblings and Chaffinches followed in similar fashion

An hour passed with little to see apart from Common Chiffchaffs coming and going in the tree and a couple of Blackcaps also feasting on the apples. Each appearance of a chiffchaff in the tree prompted a surge of hope and expectation that it could be the one but on checking the bird carefully it always ended in disappointment.

All the time news was coming in of other tempting birds being seen on the peninsula.A Hume's Warbler was trapped at Church Fields and a Pied Wheatear, Richard's Pipit and Amur Stonechat were at Sammy's Point. A Pallas's Warbler was in the car park of the Crown and Anchor pub and a female Desert Wheatear on the beach near Kilnsea.

My resolve was being tested to the very limit with these constant updates and other birders around me could no longer resist the lure of all these tempting birds and left, so we were down to just four or five.

I hung on and scanned the tree for the umpteenth time with my scope, right to left, top to bottom 

Nothing.

A Sparrowhawk sped through the garden prompting a mass exodus of panicking Blackbirds from the apple tree

Two hours had by now passed very slowly. I recalled how yesterday the Bonelli's had hardly been seen at all - was today going to be a repeat? I decided to give it until noon.

Other birders came and went, always with the same enquiry

Any sign of  the Bonelli's?

Sorry but no

Cheers mate

I scanned the apple tree again, more from routine than any expectation. 

I noted a faint movement as a small warbler flew into the apple tree from the right and landed  half way up amongst the leaves and twigs. Unlike the chiffchaffs it was more inclined to reveal itself and I got it clearly in my scope

No mistaking this beauty. Somewhat nondescript overall, showing dull greyish white underparts and brownish green upperparts with a brighter panel of lemony green on the wing and a prominent black beady eye in a noticeably plain face.This was the bird. No doubt about it.

Almost incredulous I spontaneously exclaimed 

Look at this! Yes that's it!

The Bonelli's!

I was aware of a sudden surge of fellow birders around me but there was no way I was taking my eye off it after all this time waiting and did my best to relay directions while still scoping the warbler which obligingly remained very visible. 

Tom, a fellow twitcher who I know from our annual autumn visits to Shetland and who had maintained the same long vigil as me got onto it.Having watched it for a few minutes we put the news out on Birdguides and the Twitching the UK and Ireland WhatsApp Group at around 1020am

Up to now our number had been less than double figures but it was only a few minutes after putting the news out that a surge of anxiety racked birders began arriving and our number swelled considerably

Where is it mate?

In the apple tree low down on the left above the shed roof

Got it.Cheers 

The crowd continued to grow to around forty but the viewing was very restricted. Tom said he would go and get his camera and lens, much bigger and superior to mine.I said I would hang on to keep our prime position until he got back and then relinquish my place so he could get a few images unimpeded by the crowd.

c Tom Hines

Five minutes and he was back and took my place.I still managed to find a spot further back and could see the warbler perfectly well as it threaded its way through the leaves, often coming out in the open onto bare twigs and favouring our side of the apple tree.I watched it for twenty or so minutes but the crowd was getting ever larger and ever noisier.One person in particular loudly shouting out quite un-necessary directions.Why do people do this? A release of tension maybe?

Crowd Scenes

I bade Tom farewell and made for Sammy's Point to look for the Amur Stonechat, Pied Wheatear and Richard's Pipit.

It was a refreshing change to get away from the noisy scrum at the EBW site and walk out along the embankment by the Humber Estuary, just me and a vastness of sea and sky. I was told the Pied Wheatear was nowhere to be found although it had been seen earlier in the morning and the Richard's Pipit had not been seen for over an hour. 

The Amur Stonechat however was showing particularly well, flying up from a small hawthorn to catch flies in mid air. I commenced filling my camera's memory card with its pleasing image. 

Amur Stonechat

Amur Stonechat used to be called Eastern Stonechat when Siberian Stonechat was split into two species: Western and Eastern Stonechat.Then it became Amur Stonechat but now it has been lumped again with Western Stonechat so we are back to Siberian Stonechat. Confused? So am I.

Sometimes avian taxonomy ties itself in self inflicted knots and can end up creating confusion and controversy rather than simplifying matters.Just look at the naming of birds - Britain's diver is America's loon and so on.

One of the criteria for identifying an Amur/Eastern Stonechat is that its plumage is darker than a Western Stonechat and this bird's appearance certainly looked the part. So as far as I am concerned it will remain an Amur/Eastern Stonechat. 

By now the forecast rain had begun.Nothing too serious but a light mizzle and bringing with it a low cloud base and dull light. I walked back along the embankment with an area of mudflats to my right stretching to the horizon. The evocative, mournful cry of a Grey Plover issued from far out in the grey distance where sea and sky were as one and a loud cry from a much closer Curlew made me start. Redshanks and Turnstones called in concern too as I passed by. 

The expanse of sea and sky delivered very different and far more alluring sensations than those of my home in the pastoral contours of the Cotswolds. A flock of a hundred or more chackering Fieldfares arrived from the sea, a ragged squadron scattered across the wide sky, heading inland intent on living up to their name, emphasising the wildness of this place at times such as this and bringing the magic of visible migration to life.

I got back to my car.Now what to do? The rain was becoming more persistent.I returned to the Crown and Anchor car park in the hope of seeing a Pallas's Warbler but missed it by seconds but it was followed by a Hume's Warbler, a Firecrest and numerous Goldcrests and Common Chiffchaffs that passed in a small flock through the trees before me. A Hawfinch flew over our heads, high in the sky. Birds were everywhere.

It was now noon and I felt very tired. Nothing to eat and just a coffee since four this morning was taking its toll of me.

I faced another four hour drive  home in the rain so decided to call it a day.

I could have remained and got a longer list but the main objective had been achieved and with the bonus of a rare Amur Stonechat.

I settled for that.

My grateful thanks to Tom Hines for the use of his image of the Eastern Bonelli's Warbler

A Nutcracker in Norfolk - 26th October 2026

This autumn word came that an irruption of Nutcrackers from their Siberian forest homes was on the cards and might result in one or more reaching our shores.

Nutcrackers are reliant on pine cones to keep them alive throughout the long cold winters in their northern homes.When that crop fails they have no choice but to move west in search of food or perish.

This was the situation brewing this autumn and slowly but surely reports began to come in of thousands of Nutcrackers arriving in western Scandinavia and smaller numbers reaching as far as Belgium and The Netherlands but frustratingly birders here have waited in vain to see if a Nutcracker would reach our shores this autumn. 

If and when one did where would it be?

It had to be on the East Coast surely?

The answer came on the 24th of October when news was released of one that was found the day before by a local resident in the small coastal village of Mundesley in Norfolk. Of course it had to be my ill fortune to be attending a weekend medical conference in London when news broke around Saturday lunchtime.The earliest I could go would be on Monday so I had to hope the bird would remain in the vicinity of Mundesley.

Once I heard the news I contacted fellow Oxonbirder Justin but he had already seen one back in the nineties and was not interested so I called Clackers, whom I used to twitch with back in the day but he does not like driving  nowadays and as a result of Long Covid has mobility issues. I would have to do the driving and ensure he did not have to walk too far. 

Happily he was up for a jaunt to Norfolk so we arranged for me to collect him from his house at 5am on Monday morning and then drive for three and a half hours to Norfolk.

Nutcrackers now known as Northern Nutcracker are divided into two subspecies Slender billed Nutcracker and Spotted or Common Nutcracker and the birds irrupting are from the Slender billed population.They breed from Scandinavia, central and northeast Europe across the Russian Urals to northeast Japan and are essentially non migratory, only leaving their home when the pines fail to produce cones from which the birds extract the seeds they live on. 

The last mass invasion of Nutcrackers into Britain came as far back as August/September 1968 when over 320 birds arrived in Britain, part of a much wider irruption throughout western Europe, many remaining for a considerable period of time. Since then the only long staying and twitchable Nutcracker was one at Cocknage Wood near Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire from the 14th of October until the 9th of November 1991. Another followed in 1998, remaining from the 6-7th of September at Kingsdown in Kent which a few birders who were quick off the mark managed to catch up with. Since then there has only been one accepted record of one seen briefly by a single observer in a wood at Dunnet Bay, Caithness on the 10th of November 2021. 

Other reported sightings, mainly by the general public have always turned out to be Starlings mistakenly identified as the real thing.I kid you not!

Nutcrackers for whatever reason are one of those birds that catch the imagination and cause no little stirring of the birding juices. Pleasingly large, about jay sized and the colour of dark chocolate  liberally spotted with white and with a prominent white tip to the tail, they are unmistakeable .Like  all corvids they have an abundance of character and chutzpah. Add a dose of mystique, coming as they do from the vast coniferous forests of sub alpine and montane Siberia and being very rare in Britain, you can appreciate why this lone pioneering individual would stimulate another mass irruption but of birding humanity this time, to a small unremarkable coastal village in Norfolk.

We set off from Witney at 5am and chatted away the tedious cross country journey heading east in increasingly busy commuting traffic and arrived at a cloudy but dry Mundesley just before 9am. Checking Birdguides there was one entry telling us the Nutcracker was frequenting trees along Water Lane. That was relatively easy to locate but parking looked to be difficult as cars were already lined along all available kerbsides and we had to drive out of the village past the fire station to eventually find somewhere to safely and unobtrusively leave our car.  I knew that yesterday being a Sunday had been somewhat fraught as hordes of birders descended on this small unsuspecting village of narrow lanes and as a result traffic chaos had ensued, entailing buses having to cancel routes due to the congestion and police getting involved.

However Wayne Glossop, administrator of the  Twitching UK and Ireland WhatsApp Group set up a crowd funder for the village's local inshore lifeboat to ameliorate any bad feeling from most of the village residents and this seemed to have diffused the situation by Monday.

We got our gear together, Clackers travelling light with just bins and myself likewise but also with camera. We walked at a gentle pace due to Clackers mobility issues back down the road to a crossroads and took the narrow Water Lane and soon saw a huddle of birders standing on a raised bank looking across some paddocks to a large house beyond.

I was informed this was where the Nutcracker was currently hanging out, perched high up in the golden leaved autumnal trees that divided the paddocks  

I perched precariously on the steep bank with fellow birders to overlook the paddock in front of me and for some time could see nothing of the bird. Tension inevitably began to arise. Others could see it partially concealed amongst the leaves but eventually it moved and through my bins I got my first view of a Nutcracker in Britain. 

Clackers, walking at a slower pace than me had joined us on the bank but I could see from his position he would never be able to see the bird. I called him over to me and told him to look through the scope of a kind person next to me who had it trained on the bird and was offering views to anyone still to see the Nutcracker.

And so Clackers added a Nutcracker to his British list too and I believe it was a lifer also. It is always good to ensure your companion or companions on trips such as this see the bird and as soon as possible, otherwise it does not seem right.

The bird remained in the trees moving from various branches and occasionally descending onto the grass or a tree stump. I had heard this individual was feeding mainly on wasps yesterday and apart from a short spell of feather maintenance, it appeared that was what it was concentrating on doing this morning, catching the wasps amongst the leaves or on the grass below. I never knew they did this as the last Nutcracker I saw was in The Netherlands and that was exclusively eating peanuts that we were feeding it.see here

It never came very close but the views we got were entirely adequate and we remained in what was becoming an increasingly precarious position in a narrow lane with no path and a steady flow of impatient traffic and after forty five minutes we were glad to leave the bank and walk back down the lane to seek the sanctuary of a footpath away from the traffic. 

Now approaching 11am we planned next to drive for forty five minutes to Cley Marshes where a very showy male Desert Wheatear was frequenting the scrub, shingle and a fenceline not far from the car park which would be ideal for Clackers.

Desert Wheatears are predominantly a late October to November rarity in Britain and often very confiding when encountered. Apparently this first winter male at Cley was no exception.

First priority however was food.We had been up since five with nothing to eat or drink so I suggested we stop at the first cafe we saw on the way to Cley. We found Groveland Farm Shop with a cafe just outside Roughton which is near Norwich and by way of celebration Clackers treated us to breakfast. Full English for him and veggie for me.Clackers and myself have shared a good few breakfasts in our time but without exaggeration the one we had here was one of the finest we have ever eaten. 

Not only that, I even managed to twitch Chris Sutton, former professional football player for various premiership sides and now a football presenter on radio and tv who was sitting at the next table and no I did not ask him for a selfie.

Replete we returned to the car noting the weather was turning for the worse as it began to gently rain.On getting to Cley it was looking very gloomy indeed, the cloud base low and ominously grey, the rain now full on and being whipped across the marshes and shingle by a brisk wind. It was looking bleak. I parked the car and looking east I could see a line of birders strung across the shingle not that far off and presumably looking at the wheatear.

My heart sank however as I realised that to access the bird we would have several hundred metres of loose shingle to trudge over. Not ideal for Clackers but we went at our own separate pace to get there in our own time. 

On getting to the bird I was disappointed to see how far away it was from the line of birders.From images I had seen it was obvious that it would allow much closer approach. 

The wind and rain previously discounted now had to be taken seriously as they were hampering both me and the bird which perched unsteadily, head into the strong wind, clutching spikes of dead vegetation or perching on the wires and posts of the boundary fence, Although struggling with the wind the bird was still managing to find food, dropping down regularly to seize something from the shingle and then flying back up to an elevated perch.

The weather persuaded my fellow birders to depart and I was on my own. This presented a 'now or never' opportunity to approach the wheatear more closely, which true to form showed no concern. It flew from perch to perch and finally we came to a point where it was but a metre or two from me, gripping its  selected dead stem tightly, swaying like a circus tightrope performer as the wind beat at it  and tried to usurp it from its perch.

Exposed on the ridge of shingle there was no hiding place from the elements. It was attritional. I braced myself against the gusts of wind with feet wedged firmly into the loose shingle as rain battered into my face and fired off as many shots as possible with my camera. I could hardly fail at this range and despite the difficult conditions was pleased with the results.

Tempted to linger I could see that Clackers, having seen the bird was keen to regain the sanctuary of the car  so we made our way back across the large expanse of shingle to collapse with some relief into the car out of the wind and rain.

We set off for Oxfordshire and after another four hours I dropped Clackers at his home and reflected on a pleasant day of birding with my former twitching buddy.. 

Just like old times. 

A Siberian Double - 22nd October 2026

c  Adrian Webb

On the 1st of October 2026 I saw a Siberian Blue Robin  on Shetland and today I saw a Rufous tailed Robin  at Flamborough in Yorkshire.

Both these birds are fabled, mega rare and utterly desirable vagrants from Siberia, their combined occurences in Britain not even reaching double figures. 

There have been nine in total. 

Four Rufous tailed Robins and five Siberian Blue Robins.

Basking in the satisfying glory and envy of birding colleagues at having been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to see a Siberian Blue Robin I was taken aback when reports surfaced a week after my return from Shetland of a Rufous tailed Robin being found mid morning at South Landing, Flamborough, Yorkshire on the 20th of October.

Rufous tailed Robins breed in damp forests with dense undergrowth in southern Siberia  and winter from China south of the Yangtze River to northern Indochina and Thailand so this bird at Flamborough was a very long way off course.

My heart sunk as I knew I had to go for it if possible.The bird was inhabiting a well vegetated, wooded gully with a small stream at the bottom but the prospect was daunting as the crowds would be enormous. The bird being on the mainland of Britain would mean many people who would baulk at travelling to a remote island would welcome the opportunity to see a major rarity at a popular and easily accessible birding spot on the mainland. To further compound problems the viewing opportunities  of the gully were very limited, any view being confined to looking down from a narrow path of less than a hundred metres and  the bird, being even more of a skulker than the Siberian Blue Robin, would be very difficult to see. These days twitches that attract very large numbers of people are becomng less and less bearable from my point of view. It's nobody's fault, that is the way of things nowadays and I accept this but if this bird was still present tomorrow it would definitely attract a very large number of birders craving a sighting of it.

With a hospital appointment and a car needing mechanical attention I was in no position to travel north until Thursday the 21st of October. I called Justin, a fellow Oxonbirder and occasional twitcher, the day before to see if he would be interested in going and the upshot was that we agreed to meet at his place at 3am on Thursday and Justin would drive us to Flamborough with an estimated arrival time at around 0635.

The day before we planned our visit it became apparent that, as I feared the crowds had been extremely large and viewing as a consequence very difficult and not helped by the bird's characteristically elusive behaviour, whereby it would disappear for hours before granting a seconds only view and then melting away into the undergrowth once again.

All went well on our drive north and we duly arrived on time, still in darkness, in the designated car park which was already well occupied by cars - birders cars.Dawn was just breaking  as we got ourselves together and Justin paid £6.00 for a day's parking.

We followed the track towards the robin's location, a narrow gully through which trickled a stream overlooked and guarded by a fence of wooden railings.As the light increased we crossed Whale Bridge and came to the hallowed fenceline that overlooked the gully. Even at this hour the path by the fence was crammed solid from one end to the other with birders,  leaving absolutely no room for us to actually stand by the fence. An impenetrable line and crush of birders forced us to stand two deep with little prospect of any possible view of the stream below, which the robin according to all previous reports favoured.The best that could be said of our current situation was that we were positioned directly opposite a leaning sycamore that grew up from the gully bottom and was the prime landmark to see the bird, so we were in pole position to see the robin provided we could get to the railing.

There came a rare moment of joy as the sun filtered through the trees and took the edge off the cold air.

Justin wandered off to try and find a gap somewhere, anywhere in the line of birders.

At this point no one knew if the robin was still here or not.

I remained standing where I was and hoped someone would move but there was little sign of that happening and for forty five minutes there was nothing I could do but look at the back of other birders heads in mute frustration. Then with twenty minutes having passed excited cries came from further along the fence to my right. The robin had been seen. so at least I knew it was still present. Everyone in front of me craned over the fence with some even selfishly standing on the fence rails to get a better view which rendered mine non existent.

Tired and now throughly morose I had to settle back to wait until someone vacated their spot on the fence which duly happened but I was too slow and someone slipped in front of me.More frustration ensued. but then a touch of good fortune, as with another forty or so minutes having passed there came a report of a male Siberian Rubythroat having been seen at Spurn. Cue a number of birders immediately abandoning their spot on the fence to try and seize this opportunity to get an equally if not more alluring bird on their list and as a consequence my gaining a prime position overlooking the stream and now famous sycamore below me in the gully.I was not so tardy in bagging a place by the fence this time.

Congratulating myself on having finally got a good spot I soon found myself lapsing into more frustration as the robin continued to remain unseen for a very long period and when it did appear I missed it by seconds, failing to locate it at the bottom of the gully before it slipped behind the sycamore's trunk and out of sight.

A few minutes later two small brown birds shot along the gully below me, one pursuing the other.The bird in front was the Rufous tailed Robin chased by a European Robin that over the subsequent hours was to prove persistently annoying, giving the Rufous tailed Robin no peace and frustrating any chance I had of a prolonged view of the star of the show.

At least I could now claim to have seen the Rufous tailed Robin  in flight but I wanted a full unexpurgated view of this arch skulker on the ground and relatively still.

I have only seen a Rufous tailed Robin once before and that was in September 2008 at Rudong in China. On that occasion it was in very similar habitat to that I was currently looking at and behaving in a similarly elusive manner as it appeared out of similar low cover near water and like the bird today managed to disappear without trace although I knew it was only a few metres away.

A couple of Wrens kept us on our toes with sporadic appearances, whizzing in and out of the brambles that spilled down the opposite bank and there were two more very brief and tantalising sightings of the robin but not from my present location so it was tempting to move. However. I was not prepared to relinquish my place under any circumstances until  I had satisfied my desire to see the robin well. I had all day after all. 

Hours had by now passed, it seemed later than it was and then finally the robin appeared on a low moss covered bough of the sycamore, hopping along before once more disappearing into a mess of wet muddy leaves and branches. It was a seconds only view through my bins but from  no more than twenty metres away. I saw a non descript brown bird with a greyish breast and flanks the feathers of which were noticeably scalloped with dark edgings. As it moved off I caught a hint of rufous on its upper tail. At last! I had seen it well  and properly and spontaneously I and my immediate neighbour, having shared an extended vigil for just this moment shook each other's hand in mutual congratulation and relief.

Then it was back to more prolonged. hopeful staring down into the tangle of bramble and wet leaves  at the bottom  of the gully. I had another very brief view of it hopping on the stream bed and then it was gone again.

A tap on my shoulder and turning there was a very relieved Justin who also had endured similar frustrations but finally seen it at roughly the same time as myself. It was now two in the afternoon and I estimated I had been standing for seven and a half hours in the same spot and with that we decided we had achieved what we set out to do and departed for home, the crush of birders never for once diminishing, for as we left others were arriving.

Shetland Miscellany - 17th October 2026

Here as a finale to my  stay on Shetland this autumn are a few images of less rare birds but nonetheless ones that were good to see and added to the overall enjoyment of this year's trip

Commencing (see above) with a Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll at Burn of Sound

Common Redstart - Sumburgh Quarry

Little Bunting - Sumburgh Head Lighthouse

Citrine Wagtail - Quendale Mill

Red breasted Flycatcher - Ollaberry

Siskin - Clickimin Loch, Lerwick

Birds seen on Shetland from 16th of September-17th of October 2026

Red throated Diver;Great Northern Diver;Little Grebe;Slavonian Grebe;Northern Fulmar;Great Cormorant;European Shag; Grey Heron; Mute Swan;Whooper Swan; Pink footed Goose; Greylag Goose; Barnacle Goose; Common Shelduck; Eurasian Wigeon; American Wigeon; Eurasian Teal; Mallard; Northern Shoveler; Common Pochard; Tufted Duck; Greater Scaup; Eider; King Eider; Long tailed Duck; Common Scoter; Velvet Scoter; Common Goldeneye; Red breasted Merganser; Pallid Harrier; Eurasian Sparrowhawk; Common Kestrel; Merlin; Red Grouse; Common Quail; Moorhen; Common Coot; Ringed Plover; European Golden Plover; Grey Plover; Lapwing; Knot; Sanderling; Baird's Sandpiper; Purple Sandpiper; Dunlin; Buff breasted Sandpiper x 2; Ruff; Jack Snipe; Common Snipe; Black tailed Godwit; Bar tailed Godwit; Eurasian Curlew; Common Redshank; Turnstone; Great Skua; Arctic Skua Black headed Gull; Common Gull; Herring Gull; Great Black backed Gull; Kittiwake; American Black Tern; Guillemot; Razorbill; Black Guillemot; Rock Dove;Wood Pigeon; Collared Dove; Kingfisher; Skylark; Swallow; Olive backed Pipit x 2; Meadow Pipit; Rock Pipit; Citrine Wagtail; Grey Wagtail; White/Pied Wagtail; Wren; Siberian Blue Robin; Robin; Bluethroat; Siberian Stonechat; Common Redstart;  Northern Wheatear; Grey cheeked Thrush; Blackbird; Fieldfare; Song Thrush; Redwing; Reed Warbler; Barred Warbler x 2; Lesser Whitethroat; Blackcap; Common Chiffchaff; Willow Warbler; Two barred Greenish Warbler; Arctic Warbler; Yellow browed Warbler x 7; Western Bonelli's Warbler x 2; Common Chiffchaff; Willow Warbler; Goldcrest; Firecrest; Red breasted Flycatcher x 3; Pied Flycatcher; Golden Oriole; Red backed Shrike; Great Grey Shrike; Rook; Carrion Crow; Hooded Crow; Common Raven; Common Starling; House Sparrow; Chaffinch; Brambling; Eurasian Siskin; Common Linnet; Twite; Common Redpoll; Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll; Common Rosefinch; Lapland Bunting; Black faced Bunting; Little Bunting.

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There were four megas on this trip in the form of:

Siberian Blue Robin - the only new addition to my British List that now stands at 546. It was also a lifer

Grey cheeked Thrush - my second for Britain

Two barred Greenish Warbler - my second for Britain

Black faced Bunting - my third for Britain

Mammals

Minke Whale

Bottle nosed Dolphin

White beaked Dolphin

Risso's Dolphin

Atlantic Grey Seal

Common Seal