yorkslister

During the spring I was lucky Savi's Warbler and Iberian Chiffchaff the only birds I needed for the county hung around long enough for me to get back for them.
Last autumn I went north to Orkney and Shetland for the month knowing that the same period in 2008 would haver cost me Brown Shrike, Pallas's Gropper and Amur Falcon.  I only missed Baillon's Crake which most others did so it's not guaranteed I would have seen it anyway.
So it's feckin frustrating that this week I've missed Collared Fly and Olivaceous Warbler, ok so the fly is probably gonna struggle to get through but the warbler is nails.  I'm a bit gutted and don't want to talk about it anymore!
So I got back home at 2am and was in bed waiting for news from Flamborough when Tim rang to say he'd got a Booted Warbler at Grimston, some year he's having!  As it happens he managed to get access sorted as there was a stubble field suitable for parking and the bird could be seen from this field or the farm track.  It showed well for the first 30-40 people who got there but then went to ground.

Tim did well getting access arranged for this bird as usually when he finds anything good the answer from the landowners is no, hopefully they'll be more inclined to say yes in future as people stayed where they should apart from 2 individuals who wanted a piss and and were too bashful to lob it out in front of the few women present and 1 who simply wanted to know if we were there yet and be the first one to see the sea!

Just before I ventured north I had a look at the Crane at Bewholme, seems to be a regular early autumn occurrence having a Crane somewhere around this stretch of coast!  I'd been sitting in the car for over 2 hours waiting for it to get closer and all four birders that had pulled up for a look stayed in theirs too.  Slowly it was edging towards my end of the field.  But then a well known import to east Yorks from the Doncaster area pulled up and got out at the other end of the field and stated to scope it.  Seeing him out of his car the very next car that pulled up the driver got out grabbed his camera and virtually sprinted to within 100yds of my position, the bird understandably looked more nervous and after a while obviously thought fuck this I'm off and flew to Bewholme Hall pond, these are therefore my best efforts!  It's called fieldcraft boys, some of us have shit loads of it, others don't!