Olive-backed Pipit, Pallid Swift, Dusky Warbler: late migration on the east coast

Late October and early November has fallen between two stools for me.  I could have pushed the year list into the 310s by undertaking five or six long twitches but I really did not feel like it.  I haven't fancied a twitch for a month or more.  Perhaps burned out, maybe trying to juggle too much or maybe just a little too content now that I've seen as much as I wanted to, instead I have focused on birding with friends and getting back into the winter pattern of watching.

But then the east coast suddenly seemed to come alive.  The much-delayed Pallas's Warblers alongside Pallid Swifts, Dusky Warblers and an Olive-backed Pipit entering its fifth day at South Gare coincided with a free day.  Another 5am start having arranged to meet Andy Stockhausen (powering through to an absolutely mental year list) at first light on the strange post-industrial Mad Max film set that is South Gare and I swallowed the last of my coffee as we began to search for what most of our friends had said was an elusive Olive-backed Pipit.  As far as I'm concerned, all OBPs are elusive.  Since 2021 I've missed birds at Spurn and Flamborough on more than one occasion each.  My hopes for the South Gare bird were not high, and as the light grew and we were the only birders searching, without any way of confirming how accurate the various bird apps pins were, the Pipit continued to elude us.  Seeing a patch of long grass trampled down we thought that might offer a clue as to where the OBP had been observed over the last few days.  With the arrival of a more local birder who told us that it had a habit of flushing from under foot and flying less than 30 feet into tree cover before vanishing back into grass, we began to walk the area.

Within 60 seconds Andy had almost stepped on it and a gorgeously marked Olive-backed Pipit landed low in a stand of trees close by.  Brilliant to observe the tail pumping, pink legs, "painted on" wing bars (as Andy said), along with well marked supercilium, and the classic olive patch on the back.  This was a bird in fresh plumage, distinctive, feeling bigger and more solid than a Meadow Pipit.  The mouse-like behaviour walking in grass was also repeated on the horizontal trunks of trees and we saw the Pipit scamper down into cover along branches more than once.  The light all day was abysmal, and my ISO settings were so high that all my images were grainy, but at least I managed a photo of this bird: I wasn't skilled enough with the next one, and the final bird ran me round in circles at South Landing.  Poor photos aside, this was a triumph and the adrenaline and endorphins at success powered through my system, and I was laughing and buoyant as I got back into the car.

As I left South Gare with the intent to meander south to Flamborough and see what I could see, hoping for Dusky Warblers and maybe a re-found Pallas's, news broke about a Common/Pallid Swift at Whitburn.  Turning north instead of south, I arrived and managed a glimpse of what had just been confirmed as Pallid Swift over the fields just opposite the windmill.  I tried to track it with the camera, but as ever, fast birds and fumbling my settings against a horribly flat grey sky meant I got nothing recognisable.  It had flown so high and so fast I was convinced it was leaving, and breathed a sigh of relief that I'd got there in time, but the bird stuck the rest of the day - I wish I'd given it longer, but under time constraints I had to leave in order to do the school run, and I still wanted to try for Dusky Warbler.  This was the second lifer of the day, and an unexpected one.  The Dusky Warblers had shown so well on the weekend I was confident I'd get some photos of them to compensate...

It always surprises me that Flamborough is so far south of Durham.  Perhaps I'm guilty of viewing the east coast as a bit of an unbroken bird highway, but Whitburn is as far from Flamborough as Carlisle is from Manchester, and there is no major road connecting the two.  Flagging from the early start, this felt like a long drive, but South Landing was alive with birds when I arrived.  Goldcrests, Long-tailed Tits, Bullfinches, Chaffinches, and a couple of Chiffchaffs dashed around the canopy.  Pausing in a stand of trees between the car park and the picnic area that was the best landmark for hearing the Dusky Warblers calling, I heard the distinctive hard teck noises of my target bird.  I've seen a couple of Dusky Warblers before, but honestly, if you compiled all the views I've had into one, I've maybe seen the whole of one DW cumulatively.  They can be very, very elusive.

So when this one sat up on top of a bramble and called at me from no further than 15 feet I was beyond surprised.  Of course, the lens cap was still on.  Then the ISO needed raising.  Then autofocus was slow.  I got one shot of the last half inch of the Dusky tail as it vanished down the gully, calling constantly and never still for more than 3 seconds of the next 45 minutes.  With time running out, I gave up with the camera and just watched the bird as a Robin bullied it out of bush after bush.  The overall impression of the bird, without any one part of it being this colour, was gently rusty, if that makes any sense at all.  Though I found it incredibly hard to pick the call out from amongst Wren contact calls, as soon as it actually called it was so immediately different from them that I could locate the bird very quickly.  I've always thought of Dusky Warblers as being odd, and this familiar/unfamiliar call and plumage left me feeling strangely dislocated about the bird, like I hadn't ever really got a good handle on what it's actually like.  It was a learning experience, and a trio of very good birds to keep me sane on the ridiculous slog home past Manchester.

I wonder how much of how we watch birds is encultured into us by the people we bird with.  Andy has such energy, such a dynamic personality that I get caught up in his infectious enthusiasm for all birds.  His excitement about an Olive-backed Pipit and the way he speaks with such open wonder at how incredible he finds what is, in all objective reality, a small brown bird, is inspirational and I find myself appreciating this Siberian wanderer in a new way.  I'm much more likely to embark on a last minute dash for a bird when I've been with him or spoken to him than when left to my own devices, when I'm a much slower-paced person, less likely to commit to outrageous twitches and sleeping in car episodes.  Perhaps that's something I should seek more of - the breadth of company, of socialisation, to bring out the best in how I look at the birds that I search for and see.  His open joy has improved every twitch where I've joined him, and who couldn't use some more joy in their lives?

Perhaps this was one last hurrah for the year list, a final sprint towards a finishing line I've been ready for for some time, but it was my first solo-driving twitch in a month and I felt better during and after than I'd been anticipating.  Maybe there's one more big birding day left in me before the end of 2025 after all.