Need inspiration for 2025's #My200BirdYear challenge? Ruth Miller helped some birders hit 2024's target
If you have joined in Bird Watching magazine’s #My200BirdYear, you may have found it the perfect excuse to go birdwatching regularly throughout the year to connect with different species in different seasons. And autumn birding will give your list a real boost as migrant birds start to return, sometimes bringing with them a bonus scarce or rare bird. In my opinion, there is no better place to experience autumn migration than on the east Yorkshire coast. Which is why we were on Flamborough Head early morning in late September with Tony and Eva, as Tony was close to achieving his 200 species for the year.
We had headed out pre-dawn to get to Flamborough Head at first light to do some seawatching and were rewarded with Arctic Skuas, Red-throated Divers, Gannets, and Razorbills flying past; not necessarily new for Tony’s list, but a great start to the day. Later on, we heard news of a Red-breasted Flycatcher and Icterine Warbler near some sewage works next to the Viking Hotel on the North Landing. These would both be new for Tony’s list, so we made a beeline for a patch of rough ground that overlooked the sewage works, lined on our side by a hedge of scrubby bushes and on the far side by taller trees. We’d barely set up our telescopes before we caught sight of a Red-breasted Flycatcher on one of the bushes! But then our attention was caught by a bright spot among the vegetation: this was the Icterine Warbler sitting out to preen on an open branch in the sunshine.
The bird obligingly sat still long enough for us to focus our telescopes giving an excellent view of this stout-billed, lemon-fronted warbler. Then, not one, but two Red-breasted Flycatchers came into view as they worked along the hedgerow. Add into the mix a Yellow-browed Warbler that popped up from time to time and there was certainly plenty to entertain the group of birdwatchers who had joined us in the September sunshine.
No time to lose, however; we had more birds to look for to add to Tony’s year list and we headed over to RSPB Bempton Cliffs reserve in search of a very rare bird indeed: Pale-legged Leaf Warbler. This amazing bird, more usually seen in Asia where we had in fact seen it in Thailand a few years ago, had initially been spotted at Bempton Cliffs a few days earlier. Being a real skulker, the bird only gave a fleeting glimpse and was initially thought to be an Arctic Warbler. We were in fact only a few feet away from it at the time and we looked for the bird, but in vain.
However, having enjoyed glorious views of another Arctic Warbler earlier that day, we didn’t feel too cheated. Shortly after, the bird was “re-identified” as an Eastern Crowned Warbler, a rarer and hard-to-identify bird, but we weren’t in the area to look for it again. On its third incarnation, the bird was finally identified, thanks to a sound recording of its call, as a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler. This was the first time that a live bird had ever been recorded in Europe (in October 2016, a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler turned up on the Isles of Scilly but the unfortunate bird flew into a window and died before anybody saw it alive), so birders were coming from far and wide to see the 2024 bird.
Imagining the football crowd packed into the confines of the RSPB reserve to see this rarity as soon as possible, we played it cool and waited until the afternoon, keeping fingers crossed that the paparazzi wouldn’t spook the bird. Even so, we struggled to find space in the overflow car park, and it wasn’t hard to guess from the throng where the bird had last been seen. Good news: it was still here. Bad news: it was being pretty elusive, as it followed a circuit through the bushes; a short hop through the middle for a bird, but a much longer run round the outside for mankind. When the word went up that it had been relocated, most of the birders and photographers rushed off in hot pursuit. Again, we played it cool, held our nerve and stayed put, relying on the bird to complete its circuit and return to our area. Our plan worked a treat and when the warbler came back, we had shuffled right to the front. By bending down and looking under the branches where the bird flitted down to the ground and back up, we enjoyed frame-filling views of this striking warbler: pale supercilium, faint wing-bars, pale underparts and of course those eponymous pale pink legs. What a cracking addition to Tony’s 2024 list!
And still there was more. On our way back to our base at Beverley we took a small detour to look for another migrant bird on a housing estate on the edge of Hull. An unlikely setting, you might think, for an exotic Hoopoe. However, the layout of open grassy squares surrounded by terraced houses provided to be the perfect location for this bird, which was entertaining locals and visiting birdwatchers alike as it probed the soft grass with its dagger-like bill for tasty invertebrates. Rather like the warbler, it too had a preferred circuit, and it led us a merry dance around the grassy parks of the estate. This was not without its benefits, though, as, following the Hoopoe round a corner, we were rewarded with not only the bird again right at our feet but also a flock of four Ring-necked Parakeets exploding from the trees above us. Two more exciting species for Tony to add to his tally.
So, if you are considering the #My200BirdYear challenge in 2025, my advice would be to go for it and enjoy the ride. You never know where it may take you, but one thing’s for sure, it will be fun!