Yellow-browed Warbler

Tuesday saw me up on Cissbury Ring for the annual pilgrimage to see the Ring Ouzels. It's always one of the most frustrating days of the year. The birds were in the large Yew tree as usual and you could see them flying in and out, but once in the tree they were completely hidden. Getting a picture is virtually impossible and this year I came away again with just a few out of focus shots of the birds through gaps in the branches. They seem to be a lot easier to photograph when they come through in the spring (see here) but of course a lot harder to find.

Perhaps I should be grateful though, at least the Yew tree is still there. It looked for a time as though the National Trust were going to cut it down. So much for National Park status and protecting the countryside.

Today, Thursday, had all the makings of another difficult day. I was over to Selsey to see if I could find the Yellow-browed Warbler that had been reported there. Armed with details of its location from the Seley blog it did not prove  too difficult to find. Getting a picture though, proved a lot harder. The bird was very mobile and very fast moving and after a couple of hours I did not really have anything to show for my efforts. Birders came and went, happy just to have seen the bird and got their tick, but I had to have a picture.

In the end the effort paid off but it was hard work

Yellow-browed Warbler

A quick walk around Church Norton found it unusually quiet so I decided on an early finish and spent the next hour sitting in traffic jams as the schools emptied out.