Saturday 4 September 2010

Rush Bird 2 - Cliff Swallow

For those of you who have followed for a while I promised I'd tell a tale or two about my best twitches. Been a while now since 1 (see Labels).

So here's number 2...CLIFF SWALLOW at Spurn 23/10/1995

The bird had been seen on the previous day (Sunday) and as it was half-term I decided to give it a go on Monday morning. I arrived about 8am (it was a long time ago!) and joined the small crowd by the Caravan park. There was definitely anticipation in the air and this was well founded when Pete Pirenger suddenly cried "there it is!! You can guess the elation as the bird slowly drifted south right in front of us. Everybody (well most) then jumped in there cars and headed down to the Narrows. Sure enough within a few minutes we could see the bird approaching, again giving, as they say "crippling views". Obviously to see an american swallow in Britain and especially on the east coast was amazing. The rest of the morning was spent looking for the bird as birders in all attires screeched up and asked for the latest but it wasn't seen again that day, although there was a sighting on the 28th apparently.

Pushed into second place by the NIGHTHAWK, but still a tremendous RUSH BIRD!

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