27th May

Out on the moors finally got a good bird, a first summer male Marsh Harrier, a very dark individual came in being mobbed by a bunch of Curlews. Also all the usual moorland species and 2 Cuckoos singing. No Shorties this year, probably due to lack of voles.

Recent photos

Found 3 Whitethroat territories and 1 Blackcap in the Roils Head area, finally got a photo of a Swift at Tower hill.

Arm Chair Tick

Having had the worst spring ever with my best local bird being a Garden Warbler that sang for one day, I decided to go over some old records. I noticed that it as been decided to split Subalpine Warbler into Western and Eastern so I checked my records and found that over the years I have seen 5 different birds in Yorkshire, 1 at Filey and 4 at Spurn. One bird stood out that me and Tall Andy saw at Spurn on 12^th May 1998, a superb male with the reddish under-parts restricted to the throat area and with a broad white Moustache, I always thought it a good candidate for Eastern so I checked with Dan Branch and he confirmed it was correctly identified as an Eastern Subalpine Warbler, so Ive managed to salvage an armchair tick out of this dreadful year. The above photo of the bird I bought off the finder.