Yellow-browed Warbler

 

I went looking for the Yellow-browed Warbler at the Patching Sewage Works on Tuesday. It was part of a hyperactive flock consisting of two Firecrests, probably half a dozen Goldcrests and a number of Chiffchaffs including at least one possible Siberian. Seeing it was easy enough but getting a good shot was near impossible.

Checking my pictures later that evening I think I did get one picture of it, as below. Yellow supercilium, dark eye stripe, brown legs rather than the Chiffchaffs black and the hint of a pale wing-bar, but without getting the double wing bar in the shot, I cannot be sure. There was a good picture of it published on Twitter which was a close match, even showing the thin brown line breaking the supercilium just behind the eye.

Am I happy - no - I want a better record shot. If it stops raining I will have to go back for another go.

Possible Yellow-browed Warbler

One bonus from the visit was that I picked up a half decent shot of a Firecrest. Another bird that I see often enough but rarely manage to photograph.

Firecrest

Other pictures taken recently

Marsh Tit

Siskin

Skylark

Spotted Redshank

Wren

Red-legged Partridge

And a couple more of the Barn Owl from  a revisit on Tuesday evening.

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

It was good to see the Barn Owl again but the lighting was not so good and most of the pictures were blurred or grainy.

Yellow-browed Warbler

New Years Eve and we were out for one final birding trip for the year. The target was the Yellow-browed Warbler at Eastleigh Sewage Works and it proved to be one of the easiest ticks of the year. We arrived at the site at about a quarter past nine to find a couple of birders already scanning the area. The bird was visible before we even had a chance to get the bins out.

Great early views and if we were just birders we could have gone home happy. The problem is that we are bird photographers and so we spent the next two hours trying to get a decent picture and we didn't really go home happy. Great fun but very frustrating.

Yellow-browed Warbler

In cover but showing the two wing bars and pinkish legs and bill base.

It was a nice way to end the year but with the clouds building up and the wind strengthening we decided to call it a day and head for home. New Years Day tomorrow and we start all over again.

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.