Was it a willow warbler?

Excuse the length of this post, I got a bit carried away! If you’re interested in the willow warbler then skip to paragraph nine, otherwise, read on…

When our seabirds leave the Bempton cliff side at the end of the breeding season, the reserve often feels a little bereft. If you look carefully though there is still plenty to see, its just that after the sheer spectacle of 250,000 screaming seabirds, everything’s a bit harder to spot!

Recently I went out on to the reserve with a target of seeing four different birds on a short walk. It might seem like a low target but I’m not an experienced birder and the weather wasn’t particularly nice! I set off on the discovery trail, turning left out of the back door of the visitor centre, past Pallas’s patch and up the side of the pond. The first bird I spotted was an easy one, the tree sparrow.

Bempton has around 30 pairs of breeding tree sparrows and they really like to make themselves known, especially early in the morning, when the noise they make can drown almost everything else out.

I carried on down the back of the field and turned right between the fence and the scrub line. During the early autumn, the bushes in this area were laden down with berries, but now they’ve been totally stripped and the birds have moved on to different food sources. A solitary blackbird hopped around under some hawthorn and became bird number two on my list.

I kept walking down the path until I came to the meadow. A small brown bird was startled by the noise I was making with my big clumpy walking boots and flew off low over the long grass. I tried to tiptoe after it but I probably sounded like an elephant to the bird. Despite the fact that I couldn’t identify it, I decided to count it as my third sighting (I was clutching at straws at this point).

I reached the cliff top path soon after that and quickly spotted a small group of feral pigeons swooping and diving between outcrops. Now most people aren’t that impressed when they come to the coast and see a bunch of pigeons but if they actually watched them fly then they might be surprised. The sheer speed at which they move is impressive for a start and the agility they need to avoid crashing into the cliffs is incredible.

I walked shoulder to wing with the pigeons for a little while before turning right into the sunflower field. A few weeks earlier the heads were still brimming with seeds but large goldfinch numbers and strong winds seemed to have emptied them somewhat.

I reached the Dell area, and was going to pass by it when I spotted a tiny movement in one of the trees. Another little brown bird was sat on a high branch. This one, however, considerately stayed still until I’d had a chance to notice a few identifying features. The bird had pink legs, a very pale creamy brown breast and slightly darker wings. It also had a pale supercillium. It was all ruffled up so it was hard to judge how big it was, but in this state, it looked sparrow sized so it was perhaps a bit smaller.

After pouring over the British Birds guide in the visitor centre and re-describing and discussing it at length, my colleagues and I concluded that it was a willow warbler. It is not a common occurrence for a willow warbler to be in the north of Britain at this time of year, so feel free to be skeptical, but it really was the only thing we could come up with.

You may have noted that this was the fifth bird I had seen on the reserve, which means that I met my original target of four. However, I have failed to even get round to mentioning the two male pheasants I saw tussling in  the car park, the blue tit sat on a bird feeder or the barn owl that I saw from the visitor centre window.

I was pleasantly surprised that by putting in a little effort, it was possible to have a really interesting walk that included eight different species of bird, none of which were sea birds. I’m pretty sure that anybody, of any skill level, could do the same if they tried, so that’s my challenge to you: beat eight birds in one walk and let me know…