The "Bird of the week", the bird that gets a lot of birders excited, was an American Robin that had been found in a quiet cul-de-sac on the edge of a housing estate in Eastbourne. The bird had been discovered on Tuesday although the consensus was that it had been around for almost a month feeding on berry bearing bushes and trees in residents gardens. I already had American Robin on my UK list but Mrs Caley did not, I had coerced my mate Trevor to make a detour to Grimsby from our route to Scarborough where we would watch Chelsea struggle to deal with a non-league side in the FA Cup fourth round at the end of January 2004. The American Robin was feeding on a grass verge next to a greasy spoon burger van on an industrial site. I ticked it from the car, and didn't spend any more time there than was necessary because we had a rendezvous arranged with the rest of our friends at a pub, aptly called the Dotterel, high up in the North Yorkshire Moors. By the end of that weekend, after an instantly forgettable match and a lot of drinking I had pretty much forgotten everything about the American Robin as well!
A chance at seeing another American Robin therefore couldn't be passed up, particularly since it was reasonably close to home. Since seeing the Grimsby bird I had had a couple of near misses, a bird at Glenmore at the foot of the Cairngorm Mountains discovered the day after we had left for home after we spent two weeks there, and an elaborate hoax of one in Buckinghamshire where I spent three hours looking for it before being told by a neighbour, of the chap who reported it, that it was never there and had been invented to annoy another neighbour! This American Robin though, as photos and accounts from locals testified, was very real and showing very well. I was keen to visit before the weekend because I knew that would be very busy and twitching rare birds in urban settings can be fraught if too many birders attend. So I decided that I'd take another day off on Friday, despite knowing that we'd have to brave the M25 slog at the worst possible time to get home in order to have our chance of seeing the Robin. There were also two other birds that were just a few miles away from the American Robin, not lifers but both worthy of a look, especially in the case of a long staying Hume's Leaf Warbler, a species which we'd only seen once before although we did see two at the same time. An even longer staying Hooded Crow would also be on our agenda.
The drive southwards was largely uneventful and we made good time until we hit some roadworks on the A27 east of Brighton. As I toiled in the jam I looked up at the Amex, a new stadium that I never got to go to but I imagine it's an improvement on the old Goldstone Ground, what wouldn't be? The stadium may be much more salubrious but its name certainly isn't as homely. Musing on the fact that B&HAFC is the only football league side to have their own RSPB badge, even though it isn't of an actual species of bird, it's a Seagull thing, the traffic finally relented and we were on our way again. In need of a stop before joining the bigger twitch, we made a short detour to Polegate services just north of Eastbourne where we'd hopefully encounter the Hooded Crow. Having "used" a certain American burger chain for the only purpose it's fit for, we spoke to a group of birders who were just returning to their car. They had already ticked the Robin and had just located the Hoodie as well. Their directions to the Crow made our task of finding it a lot easier because it wouldn't have been without them. The services lie off the very busy A22, every road in the South coast area seems to be very busy and unfortunately the Hooded Crow had decided that a refuge provided by an inaccessible group of trees on the opposite side of the dual carriageway would suit it best at the early hour. With the directions provided we found it easily enough, perched in a tangle of low branches quite close to the road and roundabout but viewing was awkward owing to the low sun that was shining directly at us and the traffic that was thundering past. Having seen lots of Hooded Crows before I was happy to grab just a few record shots before moving on, there were scarcer birds to find after all. I can't remember ever having seen a Hooded Crow so far south before, usually you have to go to North Scotland to see them.
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| Hooded Crow |
The American Robin location was just three miles away so we were there within minutes of leaving the services. We had travelled down on the Friday to avoid the mass twitch that would surely take place the following day and because of the promised fine and sunny weather. It was a a bit of a surprise then to see so many birders and twitchers in attendance and we had to drive around for a while to gain a decent parking spot that wasn't too far away, it was a bit like arriving late for kick off at the Goldstone and trying to park. We joined the fifty or so fellow hopefuls and got the latest gen from someone we'd spoken to before at previous twitches. The American Robin which had been showing really well first thing in the morning had only shown briefly and at distance since and most people present hadn't seen it at all. As the usual anxiety threatened to rear its ugly head, I assured Mrs Caley that we wouldn't have to wait long. American Robins are showy birds and this one, as photographs from earlier in the week testified, was very obliging. Just five minutes later the bird flew in rapidly from our left and settled in a small tree in the front garden of one of the houses.
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| American Robin |
American Robins are not really a Robin at all but are actually a species of Thrush as this one exhibited by not only superficially resembling our native Blackbird, albeit one with a bright orange-red breast, but also by loudly "chacking" and flicking its tail and wings just as a Blackbird would. It was European settlers to North America who termed the bird as a Robin because that red breast reminded them of the familiar bird back home. The American Robin stayed a few minutes in the tree surveying the area to ensure all was safe, we had noticed a couple of cats in the vicinity, before it flew a short distance to land in a cotoneaster bush, where it had been in many of the photos that I'd seen on social media.
The cotoneaster was clearly the American Robins own personal larder but it didn't tuck into the bright red berries straight away, again the bird made a complete check of its surroundings before beginning its feast. Some of the birders and toggers present had obviously been before because they had staked out the cotoneaster bush so the best I could do was tag onto the back of the line and shoot frames between shoulders and heads. The bush was partly obscured by garages so there was only a limited field of view if stood closer, although from the far side of the road it was easier to see the bird so Mrs Caley had fine unobstructed views. I watched the bird, its behaviour of nervously flicking the tail and wings plus its fairly large size put me more in mind of a Fieldfare than a Blackbird although it seemed quite happy in an urban setting whereas Fieldfares are not unless the weather takes a turn for the worse.
The American Robin decided it was time to feed and boy did it feed! I've watched birds like Waxwings devour berries with some gusto but this bird must have been a champion speed eater, berry after berry disappeared down its throat and I wondered how it managed to breathe. At peak I reckoned it was downing a berry every other second. The gorging was accompanied by the racket of dozens of camera shutters, mine included, as we all tried to capture the moment a berry was held in the bill ready for swallowing but that was incredibly difficult to get owing to the speed of dispatch giving the camera shutter a run for its money. There was no time to review the images at the time so I was pleased to find a couple of "berry tossing" shots when editing the photos later.
The American Robins choice of the cotoneaster actually helped it to blend in and became quite tricky to see at times despite the bright sunshine. When facing its admirers the redbreast blended into the sea of similarly coloured berries.
After just six minutes of frantic feeding the American Robin flew up and away from its banquet and alighted in the original tree again. From there it flew into a much smaller bush and promptly disappeared presumably to digest its meal. I searched every inch that I could of that bush and could not locate the bird. It is amazing how a bird so large can just melt away into its surroundings.
We'd been on site for no more than twenty minutes but decided to leave, I had photos and if the bird stuck to its previous pattern of behaviour then it wouldn't reappear for a couple of hours. The next bird on the day's itinerary would likely need a lot more effort to see and we needed some sustenance of our own.
We easily found the place that the Hume's Leaf Warbler was frequenting, that was evident by a large group of birders stood halfway in the main promenade road staring up into a group of trees, but it took a bit longer to find a cafe for breakfast where we could park without paying. Taking a time-out for food wouldn't be a problem, the Hume's Warbler had been present since the end of November and had stayed loyal to a small area around the promenade so it wouldn't be disappearing on us. The birders already looking at it would provide us with an instant location fix so we wouldn't have to go searching for it either. Or so we thought anyway!
After a very satisfying Full English breakfast and very un-English two Flat White coffees, I was fuelled up and ready to go again. We parked a short distance from the throng of birders, which had thinned out a bit since we'd driven past but had attracted the attention of the local constabulary presumably because of the encroachment into the road. We joined the twenty or so twitters left and asked where and when the Hume's had last been seen. A chap answered, "It's been up in that furthest tree but hasn't been seen for half an hour now". We joined in peering at the spot where the Hume's had been seen and soon realised just how difficult the task would be. The trees in question were Holm Oaks, a type of densely leaved tree that is found around the coast. Unlike all of the Oak trees I'm used to, this particular species doesn't appear to drop its leaves in winter so we were looking for a very small in a tree with an almost impenetrable canopy. Seeing such a small bird flitting around in that lot was not going to be easy at all.
Our mission to see the Hume's Leaf Warbler was made more difficult when a birder, who had been at the American Robin twitch earlier, ran across the road and stated, "I don't know why you lot are looking for the Warbler there" and "We've been hearing it calling non-stop over here for the last half hour!" We had to make a choice and with no sign of the Hume's in the Oaks, we decided it must have slipped out and down across the road, and followed the chap across the road and into a pedestrianised promenade which was bordered by ornamental shrubs and trees. The first sighting, and most of the subsequent reports, of the Hume's Warbler had been made along this narrow promenade and the bird had only been seen from where we had joined the other birders on the opposite side of the main road in the past couple of days. We spoke to another birder who said that she'd been hearing the Hume's calling constantly from a group of fir trees although she had only gained glimpses of what she thought was the bird. We spent the next forty-five minutes patrolling a hundred yard stretch of the walkway and didn't hear the bird distinctive disyllabic call once!
Thinking that we may have been unwittingly duped, I suggested to Mrs Caley and a couple of other people who had also followed us across the road, several others who had come across at the same time had already given up, that I go and check back across the road and see if the bird had been sighted again there. I was surprised to see that the group of birders had grown slightly in numbers and once more asked if they had the Warbler. "Yes, it's in that tree" and was pointed in the direction of the same Oak that the Warbler was supposedly in before. Less than fifteen-seconds later I saw the Leaf Warbler flit quickly out of the leaves and back in again. It seemed as if the Hume's had been in the tree all along and that we had truly been led down the (wrong) garden path!
I called Mrs Caley to join me and we resumed our search for the Hume's Warbler in the right place again. Now we were assured that the bird was in the group of Holm Oaks, I had just had that fleeting view for confirmation, it was a case of waiting long enough to see it well and hopefully to grab some photos. We didn't have to wait too long before the bird appeared in the canopy. All I had to do was to follow it, aim the camera and click at the place it should be since seeing it through the viewfinder was almost impossible. My first attempt was almost perfect apart from one crucial aspect, while the burst of images obtained had captured the bird almost completely unobscured and "in the open" unfortunately the focus wasn't on the bird itself but instead on some of the many leaves which the Hume's uncannily resembled. At least I had a full grasp of why the bird is called a Leaf Warbler!
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| Hume's Leaf Warbler |
A familiar face from Oxfordshire, Adam (read his account here), joined us in the hope of getting some views of the Warbler. Of the trio of birds that we'd seen this was easily the hardest (ha!) to see. Perversely though the more difficult a bird is to track down then the more I enjoy the chase and, in trying to get a good look at this Hume's warbler and get a decent photo of it, I was in my element. I don't lack for patience when it comes to scarce Warbler species. The Hume's Leaf Warbler had completed another hat-trick after having seen its closely related cousins, a Yellow-browed Warbler and a Pallas's Leaf Warbler, already this year. Of the three, I still prefer the Yellow-browed but that's probably because I've spent so much time in Cornwall searching, finding and then watching them during October holidays. The Hume's had reappeared at the top of its favoured tree again and I fired off more shots. A review of the back of the camera images was disappointing yet again as I couldn't make out the bird in any of them. Then to make matters worse, the Hume's suddenly and very briefly, for no longer than a second, appeared right out in the open on a very top branch and I missed the shot. Groan!
I spotted the bird right in the shadows at the back of the tree next time and for a while just watched it through the binoculars as it hunted its insect prey in the tangle of hanging branches and leaves. Hume's Leaf Warblers are very closely related to Yellow-browed Warblers but the overall appearance is of a duller plumaged bird, the yellows and greens of the brighter Yellow-browed being replaced by muted buff and grey-green tones. The easiest way to separate the species is by call and thankfully this Hume's Warbler was making its "dsu-eet" call frequently. I peered up into the tree from below and fired off more shots and this time had captured the bird reasonably well but only of the underneath of the bird.
My best efforts, in regard to photos came when I spent an hour or so peering closely the next day at the images I'd taken of the Hume's Warbler (and leaves mostly). On some of the very first sets that I'd taken, I discovered that the bird was wonderfully in full view and in good focus too. Annoyingly a leaf obscured the wing bars but I was just grateful that I'd managed to capture a decent record shot of the bird.
It was a terrific days twitching in a lovely town that I'd never spent much time in before. Three very good additions to the year list, a lifer for Mrs Caley, and I managed to get photos of the American Robin to further embellish my own previous sighting of one too. A fantastic hat-trick!
Year List additions;
132) Hooded Crow, 133) American Robin, 134) Hume's Leaf Warbler
Great Blog and pics as usual :-)
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