Flamborough

Heading up to Flamborough once again on Thursday evening to catch the final throes of Migweek started off with a captivating talk by the brilliant Johnny Mac on his past trips to Mongolia and the range of breeding Siberian species that the region supports. The passport is ready for a trip there at some point soon!

Birding on Friday was relatively pedestrian with most of the interest out to sea. Ambling gently around the area, Old Hall produced just three brambling, 12 chiffchaff, a blackcap and a treecreeper. Not much to scream and shout about in an autumn that has yet to deliver any decent falls of Eastern vagrants.

After a quick break, focus was drawn to the sea and within 15 minutes of setting up, six glorious pomarine skua drifted slowly north around a mile off-shore comprised of five big-spooned adults.

Shortly after, J Mac headed over and invited me to join a small group on a seawatch (that also included John and Jono!). A couple of hours there produced a juvenile pomarine skua, two arctic skua, at least 50 little gull that were a feature all day, plenty of kittiwake, a single red-breasted merganser flying north, two pintail associating with a small group of wigeon, a single manx shearwater north, a Sandwich tern and a juvenile Arctic tern flying south.

There was a bit of hope for Saturday as the winds eventually swung round to a south-easterly. The morning was particularly interesting with a marked movement of redwing, fieldfare, blackbird and brambling over South Landing. Much of the day was spent here checking the ravine that produced at least four yellow-browed warbler, at least a 15 chiffchaff of which a couple were particularly pale individuals, a showy tawny owl, decent numbers of goldcrest, a few coal tit, bullfinch and a single blackcap. Visible migration petered out by late morning.

The ringing team were put on a demonstration presenting redpoll (lesser and common), goldcrest and redwing. Fascinating to see these birds in the hand.

A drake eider and a couple of red-throated diver passed close to the headland.