Frustrating

It seems to have been one of those weeks.
Stories and online messages of bird-filled bushes along the coast had me full of optimism at the start of the week that I was going to find something decent.

NE winds and foggy conditions seemed to be perfect but despite being out every morning before work it didn't seem that it was going to happen. Gypsy Lane, Brancaster and Titchwell were all tried with very little reward. It did seem rather strange that Gun Hill had a stack of birds but just a few miles to the west, nothing. I do believe some of is down to the lack of coverage in these other areas. Birding is dead, long live pager chasing!

Anyway, I digress.

Today was my last day and chance to find anything before my hols and as luck would have it, I had to go out on the reserve to 'check something' this afternoon. A walk along the east trail hedge produced a lesser whitethroat and then I flushed a tree pipit out of the grass strip by the hedge. Not bad :-)

I decided to check the scrub on the tank road as it is often good for warblers.
As soon as I started pishing a bloody barred warbler flew up into a tree right in the open before diving into some elders. I tried to call Dave who was still birding somewhere close but he didn't answer. I saw the bird again briefly but not again after that.
About 10 mins later Dave called to say that he had seen a probable barred warbler on the carpark but couldn't relocate it.

We searched for my barred but it wasn't to be found. There were a few song thrushes dropping in, a single redwing and probably 2 garden warblers too.

It was very pleasing that the effort paid off even if I was skiving a bit!!