Trip reports

Spurn Head 17th September 2006

Wednesday, 11 October 2006

This was the Stourbridge Group's first ever visit to this renowned rarity hotspot, and as it was the middle of autumn migration, expectations were high for a few 'goodies'. As it turned out the adverse weather conditions i.e. warm and sunny, meant that a lot of birds were passing straight through, so we missed out on any real rarities. However, we still saw plenty of birds centred around the triangle between Kilnsea, the sea and the Humber estuary. In bushes along the 'canal' the were at least 10 whinchats, accompanied by whitethroats, willow warblers and reed buntings. A little stint was on the canal scrape. Many small parties of birds were either passing through or feeding in the fields, and this brought the attendant raptors in the form of 2 merlins and a sparrowhawk. Other migrants included wheatear, spotted and pied flycatchers, whilst the estuary held good numbers of bar-tailed godwits, redshank, grey plovers and greenshank.