Old School Twitching.

Despite the arduous drive from Cornwall, it took a long while for sleep to grab me. Maybe I’m just too soft to sleep in a car these day; the days of four of us trying to snooze in the same car are thankfully long past. Eventually I fell into a slumber and managed some much-needed rest. 

By 6.30 I was awake again and the car park had started to fill with arriving birders. This reminded me of old school twitches, way before the advent of real time news. The familiar clunk of car doors, people getting their gear together and speaking in hushed tones. A sense of anticipation in the half-light. I readied myself, but was far from optimistic. The tide was rising rapidly and it was clear that the saltmarsh was going to flood-out as the tide peaked. Others shared my pessimism and we made a forlorn group, stood on a gloomy morning. 

Whilst initially found yesterday on the coastal path next to where we now stood, the bird had soon moved out onto the saltmarsh and spent the remainder of the day in the sueda bushes. The trouble was that the tide would have risen overnight and more or less flooded-out the sueda; hardly a suitable place for any passerine to spend the night.  At dawn the tide was rising again, and it was due to peak around 8.30. It was only just after 7.00 and the water was already high, so no chance of searching the sueda for a couple of hours at least. There was at least some hope that the bird had relocated to the eminently more suitable coastal patch area, so I waited for the light to improve.

The view at dawn as the tide rose. Surely no chance it would be out there... 

John Gregory soon appeared. His house is just a few hundred yards away and he had been one of the first to connect. We shared similar views on the likelihood of relocation today, but as we chatted and looked out to the rising water John picked up a small bird flying our way “What’s this? Get on this! That’s it!!!” No way. Despite the near complete saturation of the sueda, the bird must have clung on until it could last no longer, and headed in from the marsh. Incredibly, it alighted right next to a small group of birders and sat up in a hawthorn. The mythical RUFOUS BUSH-CHAT, picked up (almost!) on a seawatch. An incredible moment.

Rufous Buschat (by the excellent Chris Griffin)

The bird soon relocated to the adjacent stubble field and put on a cracking show to the relatively small but growing crowd. Thankfully we could space out in the field, so there were no real issues with Covid-19 restrictions (the police soon arrived, as they had the day before, but were very relaxed and helpful).

The bird continued to feed on the ground, almost constantly on view. It sparred with a couple of robins briefly and occasionally sat up in the scrub, showing off it's rufous tail.

Bush-chat is one of those legendary species. No-one has seen one in modern times. The last was a one day bird in 1980 (in Devon), and the last one seen by anyone other than the finder was way back in 1963 (famously dipped by the original twitchers, who went on news delivered by postcard). Everyone needed this species. I will, however, admit to being a little underwhelmed. Perhaps the legend was too large, or maybe it’s just that it was looking a little scruffy. 

There are two races of Bushchat (a future split no doubt), and this one belongs to the duller, shorter-tailed Eastern syriaca subspecies. 

Mega rare yes, but it won’t make it into my personal top ten. Still, I’d definitely rather have seen it than not, and the unlikely circumstances and lengthy twitch from Scilly will go down as a classic twitch.

The day was far from over though. Whilst on Scilly I’d managed to ignore the news of another tick, way up in the north east. It was only 8.30 and I’d filled my boots with the views of the chat. News from South Shields was positive. Why not?

So another long drive commenced. This obsession truly is mental. By 08.40 I was on the road, and by 13.30 I was at Trow Quarry, South Shields in Durham (or is it Tyne and Wear?). I’d been here before, for Britain’s first Eastern Crowned Warbler in 2009 (was it really that long ago?!). Simon Nichols was making the same journey, en route to a work commitment in Scotland. We arrived more or less the same time and were straight on to the target bird.

TAIGA FLYCATCHER had previously managed to elude me, despite a couple of gettable birds. The first, a spring male at Flamborough in 2003, came at a time I was unable to go. Back then it was still considered a race of Red-breasted Flycatcher and at the time I wasn’t unduly worried as I had assumed there would be many more. It was soon split, yet remained a surprisingly rare bird. The next gettable one was in 2009 on Fetlar, Shetland. I had been for that bird (with Malc Curtin), but we dipped. Frustratingly we also dipped a Veery that weekend, and the flycatcher was refound on Yell after we left. So it was an unfinished business species and one I was glad to put to rest.

Happy exhausted twitchers. Good so see Mr Nicholls!

Like most splits, it is a subtle species. However it has enough features to look for – the colder tones, all black bill, clean white orbital ring and well-defined tertial fringing all indicate Taiga over Red-breasted. It has been sound recorded and the identification was beyond doubt given the clear difference in call (unfortunately it didn’t call whist I was there). Job done, and a pleasing bird to see. 

Incredibly it had been a two-tick day, and both birds seen less than 24 hours after leaving St Agnes. Hard-core twitching lunacy. Add this to the recent Tennessee Warbler / White's Thrush combo (on consecutive days) and it's been a classic autumn.

Yards away from the flycatcher, on the next quarry face, a Pallas’s Warbler had been found earlier in the day and continued to show. These are real crowd pleasers, even though they are not particularly rare anymore. It’s been a few years since I’d seen one of these Sibe waifs and I thoroughly enjoyed this one for an hour or so.

I had one final destination, Whitley Bay cemetery. Along with Pallas’s warblers, there had been an influx of Red-flanked Bluetail along the east coast in the preceding days and I was keen to see one. This species is another crowd pleaser and, despite it’s greatly increased occurrence on our shores, will always be enjoyable. In fact there was a lovely symmetry here. In September 1993 I had flown on a charter to Fair Isle where we dipped the then mythically rare bluetail. The following month, in October 1993 I had twitched Stiffkey in Norfolk to see a Western Black-eared Wheater (in fact my first twitch with Jonno). It has been in the exact same fields as today’s bushchat. On return home that day the earth shattering news of a bluetail at Winspit in Dorset greeted me. I travelled alone the next day, and arrived in the afternoon to get pretty unsatisfactory views. At the time it was one of the biggest rarities of the decade. Twenty seven years later bluetails are so frequent in the UK that it is no longer a rarity, but it will always retain its value for many of us however many we see. I’ve even found one with Andy on Fair Isle in 2017. The Whitely Bay bird showed well, but remained high in the trees on an appalling grey day. Still it was a joy to watch.

Red-flanked Bluetail, Whitley Bay (Colin Bradshaw).

I left the north east around 5pm, arriving back home just before 9. It would take me two days to recover, but it had been a great fun day of twitching, albeit one I am not keen on happening too often