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Iberian Chiffchaff, Zitting Cisticola, American Golden Plover: The "East Anglia" Weekender 2026

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One of my favourite weekends of the birding year, I've done a long weekend in Suffolk and Norfolk every spring since 2021.  With a varying itinerary, the point is to explore some places I rarely get to, and to see all those species that we simply don't get in the north west of England; the likes of Turtle Dove, Nightingale, Dartford Warbler, Stone Curlew.  This year it was Lee driving the narrative (and the car - thanks mate!) and we set off a couple of weeks earlier than previous years.  This had an impact on the number of migrant birds we saw, with only a single Hobby and a single Swift seen, and no Turtle Dove.  However, it did coincide with some interesting rare birds and a trip list of almost 130 species is respectable. Friday began early, a 2.45am alarm to get me to Lee's by 4am and a long slog to Weeting Heath to break up the southward journey.  Stone Curlew was pretty much the first bird we saw (and we saw five of them altogether including some courtship...
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Grateful for the bright, the bold, the bizarre

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Gratitude is a strange emotion, a strange state, a weird beast.  For there to be gratitude implies someone to be grateful to for something they have chosen to do, and yet I exist in a state of gratitude for the wildlife I've encountered in the last couple of days.  This is an odd position for an atheist or agnostic to be in.  To whom am I directing my gratitude?  Or am I missing the point, and it's the emotional positivity to see beyond self to a wider world that I should enjoy rather than tying myself in knots about the nature of being? I wish I knew how to stop philosophising about my experiences.  To put it bluntly the last two days have been unexpectedly brilliant for birds.  After the hard march for the Hooded Merganser on the 18th April I fully intended a couple of days to rest.  However, news of a Wryneck showing in a sheep field in Burton village pricked my ears and I spent an hour or two in the sun watching this bizarre and cryptic Woodpecker ...
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Hooded Merganser in the Midlands but Tree Pipit steals the show

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I probably shouldn't have gone birding yesterday.  I'd been birding a couple of evenings the last week, finding a Whinchat at very last light on patch and getting caught in some heavy rain, and I wasn't feeling so good when I set off.  The events of the day slowly drained me until I was shaking with fever or exhaustion. Another high quality photograph.  You're welcome.  This was taken after sunset at long range, with maximum ISO on my camera and has been brightened significantly. I'm not sure if my fuzzy head was affecting my understanding of the directions to see the Hooded Merganser at Alvecote Pools in Warwickshire or if there was some scramble of addresses and post codes from the bird apps that we all use, but arriving at what we thought was parking for the American duck left us with a nearly 3 mile walk to the bird across some terrain that was not straightforward when carrying scope, bins, camera.  There was disbelief as we reached each different milestone ...
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Migration to marvel at: a gateway drug to vismigging...

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Turdus torquatus  is one of those Latin names that very much suits the bird it is applied to. Turdus is the word for thrush, and torquatus has two meanings - one linked to the Wryneck (where the word means "twisted" in honour of the way the Wryneck contorts itself when threatened) and one linked to Ring Ouzel where the word means "wearer of a torc".  Torcs were jewellery made famous by ancient Egyptian culture (but actually present across lots of ancient cultures), and take the shape of a wide semi-circular necklace that covers the upper chest.  The Ring Ouzel is the Torc-wearing Thrush. At 5.48am it was 1C and there was very much a sense of frost and darkness and regret in my car.  I was in urgent need of caffeine, and I had timed my arrival for first light poorly given that I was on the west side of a valley, meaning the light would be later to appear.  I walked the road for a mile up the hill and then back down slowly, hearing Tawny Owls and seeing Barn Owl, ...
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No time to stagnate: Marsh Sandpiper and upland birds

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Any day that includes a noticeable change in habitats is a day I enjoy.  I love the way that moving from lowland to upland changes the bird species that I can see, and hills are one of two primal landscapes that seem to unlock something in me.  Don't get me wrong, I love deep forest, and I love heathland, and the peat mosses of home are the bones of me.  But the rolling hills of the Lakes and the Dales unlock something in me that makes me feel alive.  Like stopping to catch my breath in a place where I can truly relax.  So a journey to Durham to see Marsh Sandpiper had to include some upland birding on the way back.  To miss out on the Dales and the Becks would make it a poor day. Marsh Sandpiper is a bird I've encountered once or twice before.  Seeing more than a dozen at Pont du Gau in the south of France in summer 2024, and the stop-start popped tyre and broken SD card of my two attempts to see the bird in Musselburgh last summer have left contrasti...
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