Spurn weekends & Albatross

 I was lucky enough to spend several weekends staying at Spurn Bird Observatory this spring. Despite doing my entire undergraduate degree in York, I'd never actually managed to visit Spurn before this year, which I now realise was ridiculous behaviour. This post goes over some of the highlights...

My first visit was a bit of an early spring recce on the 9th-10th April partially just because I was excited to visit now I was based back in York again and also to try and sus out the best places to look. As expected, it wasn't completely heaving but there were some decent birds around including Black Redstart, Woodcock, Marsh Harrier, Whooper Swan and Great Egret. I also saw my first Wheatear of the year.

Northern Wheatear

The second visit on the 13th-15th May was timed rather nicely. I arrived on Friday evening and within 15 minutes was already watching the two Red-rumped Swallows circling over my head at Sandy Beaches. After heading off down to the Point on the morning of the 14th, I was soon running in the opposite direction after hearing of the Brown Shrike that had been found from the canal. It was an absolutely stunning bird and a species I'd never really been close to seeing before in the UK. There was a nice little fall of common migrants in the evening, with my first Spotted Flycatchers and Whinchats of the year, along with a great view of a Ring Ouzel in the bushes at the end of the canal bank. The 15th didn't produce quite like the 14th did, but it didn't need to at this point!

My photos of the Brown Shrike leave much to be imagined, so here's some field notes instead

On the 27th I was back and headed straight to Kilnsea Wetlands. After about 10 minutes I picked up a Red-rumped Swallow among the hirundines at the back of the pool, which hung around for about 5 minutes before whizzing off north. The other main highlight of this weekend was Jonnie Fisk's quiz at the Crown and Anchor - Spurn has a wonderful social atmosphere and it was great to meet a load of new people, many of whom I'd heard of through social media or seen briefly at twitches etc before.

Red-rumped Swallow field notes - potentially the 13th of the spring for Spurn! One thing I noticed watching it at a distance was how its flight action differed from the more frantic Sand Martins. The chunkier RRS seemed a bit more lazy in its movements - was a very subtle difference but once you got your eye in I thought it was quite distinctive.

I also made the trip to see the Black-browed Albatross at Bempton Cliffs on 11th June after missing it earlier in the spring. To be completely honest, after seeing so many photos of it online I was almost worried it would be a little underwhelming. This couldn't have been further from the truth - the bird is absolutely mesmerising. The first few times the bird flew into view I completely lost it and started blurting out indescernible yelps. Easily among the top 3 birds I've ever seen!