Two-hour twitch: Filey Brigg, Yorkshire Coast

Filey Brigg - often a refuge for tired migrant passserines and a good vantage point for marine species

   

Date: October 26, 2025

Time: 10 am - 12.15 pm

Weather: Bright but overcast with north-westerly breeze

Target species: Siberian Rubythroat

Star species seen: Snow Bunting

Other species seen included: 

* Kestrel

* Sparrowhawk

* Common Scoter

* Guillemot

* Robin

* Jackdaw

* Chaffinch

* Oystercatcher

This striking Snow bunting, one of three, was a highlight of the twitch

Feral Pigeon or Rock Dove - or a bit of both? 

The seaside town of Filey provides the backdrop for this hunting Kestrel

 

This lone Guillemot was the only auk family member to be seen

A visiting group from Grimsby RSPB managed to detect a faraway  Great Northern Diver

Superb paintings of Godwits, Eagles, Stonechats - and a Fulmar - likely to spark keen bidding at November sale

Black-tailed Godwits - but who can identify the overhead tern species?

STUNNING bird art by John Cyril Harrison (1898-1985), Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935) and others is expected to attract lively bidding when Yorkshire-based auction house Tennants hosts a sale of British, European and Sporting Art at its saleroom in Leyburn on November 15. 

The pre-sale guide prices for the three Harrison paintings  - Black-tailed Godwit, White-tailed Eagles and Fulmar - are in the range of £200-£600.

Meanwhile, the  hammer is expected to fall at between £300 and £500 on Thorburn's study of Stonechats and a Ringed Plover. 

More info at: Tennants Auctioneers

                                                                       

A scene in Scotland? No - take a look look at the creatures in the  distance 

Seldom depicted in paintings - Harrison's study of a  Fulmar

What prompted Thorburn to include a Ringed Plover alongside Stonechats?

Memo to twitchers: 'We can't see every bird, nor do we have any right do so'

Jon Dunn - Shetlands-based writer, photographer and tour guide

FRONTLINE ornithologist Jon Dunn has reminded fellow-birders against becoming "obsessively" addicted to tick-hunting - or in believing "fervid conspiracy theories".

In a surprisingly punchy section of his regular column in online publication Rare Bird Alert Weekly, he writes: "One of these days, even the most obsessive outliers of our tribe will surely realise we cannot see every bird - nor do we have any right to do so. 

"Some birds will simply be the ones that got away."

Jon's comments have come in the wake of  Shetland woman Hazel Ulyat's October 16 photograph in her garden of a Great Crested Flycatcher - the first time the American species has been recorded in Britain.

Some twitchers speculated that the record had been 'suppressed' - ie kept secret - but  Jon does not buy the theory of anything untoward.

He explains what happened thus: "A photo of a Great Crested Flycatcher was sent to former Fair Isle Bird Observatory warden and long-term Shetland resident birder Paul Harvey.

"Once he had recovered from the initial shock, he was able to confirm the bird had been seen on mainland Shetland and that the sighting was not a hoax. 

"The breaking news also came with confirmation that the bird had been looked for, and, alas, there had been no further sign of it to be seen."

He continues: "Birders being birders, the rumour mill span into overdrive online, fruitlessly and pointlessly. 

"More often than not, despite the more fervid conspiracy theories, there is nothing sinister going on behind the scenes.

"In this instance, someone found a very rare bird recently in their garden in Shetland. The first of its kind to be recorded in the Western Palearctic. 

"They invited a friend to come and see it, and the rest, as they say, is history."

                                         

Today' edition of Rare Bird Alert Weekly

                                             

* Jon is author of The Glitter in The Green - an authoritative and acclaimed study of hummingbirds                          

Modest price paid for 1789 copy of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne at American online auction

                                                

A sale price of $537 (about £404) was achieved for this 1789 copy of the  The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne at an online auction conducted by the New York branch of Bonham's auction house. The volume might have achieved more had it not been devalued by its worn covers, fingermarks, an ownership inscription and  writing in the margins of some of the pages. Author the Rev Gilbert White (1720-1793) is probably the best-known English naturalist of the 18th Century.   

Rare Eyebrowed Thrush turns up in (where else?) Scillies

Eyebrowed Thrush - photo: Robert tdc/flickr via Wikimedia Commons

AN Eyebrowed Thrush that has spent part of this week on St Mary's Island in The Scillies has delighted those birders lucky enough to have seen it.

It is probably one of only about 30 to have been recorded in Britain - most on islands though with a few on  the mainland.

The first record, back on October 5, 1964, was perhaps the most unlikely.

It turned up amist an influx of Song Thrushes in the garden in Oundle, Northamptonshire, of Mrs Winifred Smith and son Martin.

It was variously feeding on yew berries and drinking or bathing at a garden pool.

Mother and son were gracious enough to allow experts into their home to identify  the bird through a window.

A forest species, the Eyebrowed Thrush typically migrates from Siberia and Mongolia to China and South-east Asia where it spends winter.

This week's latest Scillies vagrant was first detected on Tuesday of this week and was still present yesterday. 

A magnet for vagrant birds. Photo: visitislesofscilly.com

                                                            

How Letchworth Garden City enthusiast James Walsh descibed his delight on social media platform X. The bird is believed to be the eighth for The Scillies but the first since 1983. 

Turdidae

(birding information services).

Cambridgeshire birder who identified Britain's first Kelp Gull joins British Birds Rarities Committee

                                                   

Ace ornithologist Richard Patient - he's the one on the left 

FRONTLINE Cambridgeshire birder Richard Patient  has joined the British Birds Rarities Committee.

Welcoming his appointment,  British Birds says:  "A birder since he was seven, Richard is a well-known name to anyone who follows the rare bird scene, and he will no doubt become a valuable member of the committee."

Richard's travels in Britain have brought him sightings of many rare birds - notably, on Lundy Island,  Britain’s third Black-faced Bunting,  Red-eyed Vireo and Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 

His  BBRC submissions from Cambridgeshire have included:

* Blue-winged Teal

* Ferruginous Duck

* White-headed Duck

* Black Kite

* Red-footed Falcon (on several occasions)

* Lesser Yellowlegs

* Semipalmated Sandpiper

* Whiskered Tern

* Penduline Tit

* Savi’s Warbler

* Arctic Redpolls (on several occasions)

His main local patch is the 630-hectare Grafham Water reservoir, near Huntingdon, where his many impressive discoveries have included Great Reed Warbler, Lesser Scaup, Gull-billed Tern and Franklin’s Gull.

It was here, too, that on August 7, 2022, he idntified Britain’s first Kelp Gull, his description of which led to the receipt of the Carl Zeiss award for 2023.

Overseas, his most significant discovery to date has probably been the first record of Sharp-tailed Sandpiper for Madagascar. 

Sharp rise in one-off redundancy payments following staff cutbacks at RSPB reserves

                                         

The RSPB's  HQ in Sandy, Bedfordshire

LAST year's controversial cull of staff at some of  the RSPB's  200-plus UK reserves contributed to increased redundancy payments for the bird charity.

These payouts totalled £631,228 according to the society's annual report.

This figure compares with £218,475 the previous year.

However, the total number of employees only fell by 31 - from 2,517  to 2,486 this year.

This is because other staff were taken on elsewhere across the organisation - for instance, in membership recruitment and in encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion.

New perspectives on birds and birding: Pelagic Publishing's reminder on two recent titles

 

Bird book specialists Pelagic Publishing have issued a reminder that these two authoritative  titles are now available. Hurben's book is priced at £59.99 in hardback while Kneusel's costs £30 in paperback.-

Rolf's fasinating presentation highlights importance of Arabian oil terminals for long-distance migrants

Magnet for migrants - the Khawr al Amaya oil terminal (photo: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons)

HOW valuable are oil rigs in Middle East countries as refuges for birds on migration?

Considerably so - at least based on the experience of Rolf Williams, formerly a communications officer with the Royal Naval Reserve, whose varied career included a fascinating spell in the Middle East between March and July 2008.

Particularly rewarding was his time on the offshore Khawr al Amaya oil terminal which is located ten miles due south of the Shatt al Arab waterway in the North Arabian Gulf.

                                              

Lieut Rolf Williams - officer and birder

Here, many of his free moments were spent deploying his point-and-shoot Canon Ixus 75 camera to photographing avian visitors of many species.

 

The platform is plant-free but a magnet for long-distance migrants because it provides  a plentiful supply of many kinds of insects as food, fresh water from air conditioning units as drink and safe nooks and crannies as places in which to roost 

As such, the oil terminal acts probably as a kind of stepping stone to the many other onshore installations dotted in the vast expanses of  desert that lie in Iran, Kuwait and Iraq.

Rolf's tally of sightings included such mouth-watering exotics as:

* Rufous Bush Robin

* Roller

* Hoopoe

* Ortolan Bunting

* Lesser Kestrel

* Wheatears of several species

* Barred Warbler

* Nightjar

* Shrikes of several species 

* Little Stint

* Curlew-sandpiper

* Squacco Heron

In a presentation to a meeting in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, of the Grimsby RSPB Group, Rolf described how species such as Blue-headed and  Black-headed Wagtails adapted their insect-hunting techniques to unfamiliar flat-deck terrain and how Bluethroats always seemed to be attracted to places where there were blodges of blue paint.

What Rolf found particularly rewarding was that his colleagues, including counterparts from the US and Australian Navies, increasingly started to share his delight at the avian arrivals.

Inevitably, some of the birds that arrived were very weak and succumbed to starvation or dehydration before they could resucitate themselves.

Particularly sad was the case of a Spotted Eagle which was in such a stricken state that Rolf saw no option but to put it out of its misery - watched, bizarrly, by a Services chaplain.

It was a horrible moment for Rolf who found himself having to destroy a magnificent raptor that he had only just encountered for the first time in his life.

What it made it worse was that, as he wrung its neck, the bird's head came off.

For much of Rolf's four month in the Gulf, home was on a frigate, HMS Chatham, where he was summoned to re-identify as a Bee-eater what his superior officer had at first believed to  a 'parrot'. The colourful bird was perched on one of the guns.

It was on board the HMS Chatham, too, that, on May 12, 2008, he identified and photographed (with his Ixus camera and x10 pocket binoculars) a Long-tailed Skua - later confirmed as first record of the species for Iraq. 

                                         

Rolf illustrated his talk with some photographs including this study of a long-tailed Skua. It was taken in poor light but the long tail is visible.

His account of the sighting was subsequently published in Sandgrouse, publication of the Ornithological Society of the Middle East.

Rolf has pursued many careers in parallel and is definitely not one to let the grass grow under his feet.

It could be  next stop Thailand in 2006 for him and his partner who are considering taking up positions, teaching English.

But, at some times in the future, he hopes to return to the Khawr al Amaya terminal, perhaps to carry out ringing work and to monitor more rigorously the migrants and the dates of their arrivals  

And, he can persuade BBC to accompany him for a TV documentary, so much the better.

* Rolf will be giving an illustrated  talk on his time as RSPB warden on the North Kent marshes at a meeting of the Grimsby and Cleethorpes branch of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust  at Grimsby Town Hall at 7.30pm on Monday October 27.