An unsual event

Well, today witnessed an unusual event, I went on a mega twitch, something that I have never done before, I decided to go and see the Eastern Crowned Warbler near Middlesborough.  I would not normally go such a long way for a bird but decided as my birders wife had other plans for today that I would go for it and shared the car with a friend of mine, Mark, who I picked up en route in Birmingham, thus sharing petrol, which always helps.

We made great time and arrived at the location at 9:30am and immediately bumped into Matt.  We were then really fortunate, in that immediately after we arrived someone found the bird in a Sycamore along with a Yellow Browed Warbler and it was not long before we were able to watch both, although it was difficult to keep on both birds.  I managed to obtain a few record shots of the Eastern Crowned Warbler of which the best is below.

Eastern Crowned Warbler

We decided to then make a sharp exit as there already were about 60 people there and I imagine as the morning went on, hundreds of birders would arrive and it would soon turn into a circus.

As we had the rest of the day to get home, we first visited Staithes, which could be the St Ives of the North, where lots of artists reside due to the fantastic light.  We then drove back over the moors via Sleddale where we knew there were Rough Legged  Buzzards in the area and during lunch watched 3 of them and two Common Buzzards hunting over the nearby ridges and woods.

There then was the looooong journey home, this is not something I would like to do every weekend but with the other activities as well as the twitch, it was a nice day out.