ORPHEAN WARBLER

Managed to have a lie in this morning for the first time since the Op.

Woke at 9. Came down, put the kettle on. Turned the phone on. message from Vodaphone! Alarm bells ringing...

ORPHEAN WARBLER, Hartlepool Headland. Oh dear, I thought, that's bad luck!

5 minutes later I'm in the car and away. Bit of a hike from the coast but fortunately don't have to twitch much these days. A few texts with Haydn and I was picking him up in York.
We arrived at Hartlepool just after noon and joined the attendant throng...well at least 100. Bumped into Andrew who informed us it had been perched motionless in a bush for around an hour but was currently out of view.

30 minutes passed with no sign or shuffle. Encouragingly, the vegetation wasn't too dense and it wasn't much longer before it popped out and showed well. In fact just as we were leaving it came right out in the open in the corner of the Bowling Green. The size struck me, quite a decent sized Warbler.

So. HH strikes again after last year's WTR. Fortunately no need for ladders or vans this time, fortunately for me!

Thoughts then drifted to the ROLLER seen at Spurn, but alas there were no further sightings this afternoon/evening.

It's definitely not over yet!