I had booked two days off work and today was all planned out with an early start. Then I woke up at 2.25am with a raging sore throat and never slept again until it was time to get up :-( Consequently we had a late start and things were not looking good. We had a nice session at Marazion, but no Glossy Ibis. We dipped on Rose-Coloured Starling and Trevor said he wanted to look at Penberth. There we bumped into four bird watchers from out of County who had been told that there was a Yellow Browed Warbler seen at Penberth this morning. My interest lifted, but I decided not to make a nuisance of myself and we sloped off to St Leven Church to look for a Wryneck, which I was not confident about finding, but Trevor kept saying “I know it’s here”! I saw something from the corner of my eye land in a hedge, and Trevor confirmed he had seen it too. I started to believe he was right and caught a glimpse of it again and followed it into a small tree. I got some bad shots there before it headed off again. Now I was obsessed! We walked down the coast path about 200yrds and I turned back with the sun behind me. Trevor headed on in front and then I heard the alarm call in the hedge next to me and I knew it had to be the one. I got closer and closer and the alarm call intensified. The only way to see it was to flush it and for a moment it was so loud I was afraid it was going to attack in defence! I backed off (thinking to myself, what a twonk)… it flew – straight over Trevor’s head (he didn’t see it) and disappeared. We went back to the car and I checked the camera and although I was convinced, Trevor had not seen it and I wanted a better shot so off we went, back down the lane. It appeared almost immediately beside me in the hedge. How lucky we are. It stayed there for ages – I took a LOT of shots, some of which are below! My head count for the day was 51, so I forgot about my sore throat and stuffy nose for a while :-)
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This was the first one, which I thought would be enough to confirm my ID...
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I had a good opportunity to watch this bird and it was just beautiful. The markings are amazing.
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