Yellow Rumped Warbler!

Today I woke up and waited for news on the stunning Yellow Rumped Warbler in Durham. News eventually came through saying that the bird was still showing well at Shincliffe down Whitwell Acres so we decided to go visit this awesome bird.

We parked up the car and walked down the road to a big group of birders with scopes, binoculars and cameras. When we reached the big group of birders we asked a man if it was here and he said "no, I think it hasn't been seen for a good 30mins". After we stood and watched in one particular area for a while but sadly no luck. There was tons of birds around, most of them were Goldfinch, Chaffinch and Blue Tit but there was an odd one or two Bullfinch about to. After about 30mins of standing in one particular spot we decided to walk up the road a little further to see if we could see much else.

The whole area was teaming with Goldfinch pretty much everywhere you looked you could see one! Up the road we didn't see much else apart from a few Coal Tit, Great Tit and Tree Sparrows. We looked down the road to see some people about half way up looking into some trees so we decided to walk over to see what they were looking at but sadly it wasn't the Yellow Rumped Warbler. After about 2 hours of looking we almost decided to give up hope. We had one last walk up the road to look for the Yellow Rumped Warbler.

Near the top of the road I saw a flock of Goldfinch fly up into the tops of some trees. I walked over to start scanning through. After I had scanned most of the flock I noticed something a little different in the middle of the tree. I got my camera on it and I was speechless... it was the Yellow Rumped Warbler!!! I had re-found the Yellow Rumped Warbler! I couldn't believe it! I shouted out I have got it! soon a few of the closer birders rushed over but sadly as they arrived it flew of. Although it flew of quite quickly I was extremely pleased to have seen it and got really good views of it. It is a very nice looking bird I really enjoyed watching it.

Yellow Rumped Warbler

 

Soon pretty much all of the birders moved to this end of the street. Quite a few of them were saying to me well done and stuff like that. I was really happy. Soon the Goldfinch flock came back and someone managed to pick it out right at the back of the tree! Someone then informed us that there was 3 Waxwings just round the corner so we moved on to find 3 cracking Waxwings sitting at the top of a tree! Occasionally they dropped down to feed on a small berry tree just beside the huge amount of birders.

 

Waxwings

 

After all the excitement sadly we had to go home but before we went we got one more glimpse of the Yellow Rumped Warbler! I am really glad we got the chance to go and see the Yellow Rumped warbler! (I could have stayed all day!)