Wildlife

James Lowen

In other recent news:

- I had a splendid garden tick of Brent Goose, a flock of which flew over my Norwich house the same day that 15,000 passed Suffolk;

- I found a Richard's Pipit at Horsey before popping seals (about which I will blog separately);

- I was shown some spectacular (if tiny) Starlet Sea Anemones at Walberswick by Durwyn Liley; and

- I proved myself to be a complete muppet by heading to Cleveland on Sunday with the only man to have dipped both British Eastern Crowned Warblers... and helping him dip his third. Rich: you are fated, and I should have realised.

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6 Nov 2014 Deserted

This November I set myself a task: find my very own Desert Wheatear. This is a typical vagrant for the penultimate month of the year, typically turning up along the east coast. It doesn't skulk - so even a numpty like me ought to be able to spot it if there's one around. Perfect. Even more so, as this month marks a full quarter-century since my first - and last - encounter with this species in Britain. November 1989: when the Berlin Wall came down.

Yesterday I was working in Lowestoft, which has plenty of habitat suitable for rare wheatears: plenty of beach, short turf and seawalls. Stuart Reeves and I had a bash at Pakefield over lunchtime, and I tried the North Denes after work. To no avail. Bar the odd Med Gull, a flyby Little Gull and two confiding Snow Buntings, the beach was deserted.

It transpires that we were one day early, and one mile too far south. Mid-morning today, news reached Stuart of a 'wheatear with a black face' along the seawall between Lowestoft North Denes and Gunton. Sure enough, photographs proved it to be a male Desert Wheatear. Galling. But, applying the quarter-century rule, if I couldn't find one, I still ought to see one. So I pooled along and enjoyed fantastic views of a very co-operative bird as it scoffed flies, blithely ignoring dog-walkers who approached within touching distance let alone birders stood a dozen metres away. Splendid. But I still need to find one.