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 remote islands 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, 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 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 a planned arrival at around 0635.

During 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 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 gulley 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 moment of joy as the sun filtered through the trees and took an edge off the cold.

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 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 frustation 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 going to be 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 views of the current 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 being just a few metres away.

A couple of Wrens kept us on our toes with sporadic appearances, whizzing in and out of the brambles spilling down the opposite bank and there were two more very brief and tantalising sightings of the robin but not from my present location. 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 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 birder neighbour, having shared an extended vigil for just this moment shook each others 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.