The Spurn Premier!

This weekend we went to Spurn because we wanted to see the Premier of the Spurn Migration Festival DVD and hopefully while we were there add a few bonuses to our trip.

Day 1
The day started of with some ringing at Wheldrake Ings which was a great start to the weekend. We rung around 50 birds which included Blue Tits, Great Tits, Long Tailed Tits, Coal Tits and a single Willow Tit. We also rung Dunnocks, Tree Sparrows, Chaffinches and a Great Spotted Woodpecker which was great to see up close.

After the ringing had finished we set of for Spurn. We arrived at around 2pm and our first target bird was the Black Brant at Kilnsea. More or less as soon as we arrived Andrew Dove got us onto the Black Brant which was great! Cheers Andrew! It stuck out like a sore thumb, it was very distinctive with its light belly patch and the very white ring around its neck. other birds in the field included lots of Dark Bellied Brent Geese, 7 Whooper Swans and some Mute Swans. Here are some record shots of the Black Brant.

Black Brant

Whooper Swans

 
After that we got news of a Great White Egret at Sammys Point so we headed on over but despite looking for almost an hour we had no luck but we did see lots of Little Egrets, Redshank and Dunlin.
Afterwards we went to look for the 2 Snow Buntings of the Blue Bell car park on the beach. It didn't take long for them to appear. They flew towards us and landed right in front of us! Later they flew of further down the beach but eventually we found them again. A little while later some people from the observatory came down and tried to catch and ring them. After a good half and hour they managed to catch one of them. We then went to look for the second bird to try get some decent photos. It let us get very close, only a few feet away, it was really great to get so close to such a cracking little bird!

Snow Bunting

 

We then went back to the Blue Bell car park and in there they were showing the other Snow Bunting! It was brilliant to see it up close. What a little stunner!

Snow Bunting

 

We then went to get ready for the Premier of the Spurn Mig Fest DVD. We got a decent spot in Westmere Farm and sat down with our Pie and Peas ready to watch this great film. It was a fantastic way to sum up the Mig Fest and well done to the team who put it together. It was a brilliant film!

 

Day 2

This day was very quiet with the best bird probably being a Chiffchaff which we saw in some bushes next to the Blue Bell Café. We also saw a one legged Redshank from the Canal Scrape Hide. We had a look along the beach for the Snow Buntings but we had no luck at all.

 

Redshank

 

It was a very good trip with tons of great birds and the DVD was great!