Eastern Crowned Warbler.
News broke on Thursday 30th October of a Eastern Crowned Warbler being found at Brotton in Cleveland , this is only the 3rd record of this species in the UK , the first bird was in 2009 and stayed for 3 days and the 2nd bird was in 2011 and was only a one day bird .
I had a doctors appointment on Friday which i could not miss so had to wait til Saturday 1st November before i could go , the ECW was still there late on the Friday night so i off in the early hours of Saturday morning .
Faint crown stripe with broad supercilliums.
Five and half hours later i arrived at Brotton and made my way to the small wooded area where many birders had gathered , there was a brief shout that someone had got it but alas it was a false alarm as the bird turned out to be a Chiffchaff which of course is a nice bird in it's own right .
I went further into the woodland and after a while i decided to join the other birders present but as i was approaching them i could see they had got it and thankfully i was soon enjoying this cracking Leaf warbler , it's very distinctive , lovely supercilliums , faint crown stripe which starts roughly in the center of its crown , small wing bar , yellowish undertail coverts , notched tail tip , awesome looking yellow / orange bill , pale legs were all features clearly seen.
Eastern Crowned Warbler.
I watched this bird on & off for a good hour then decided to head off and check out Sleddale for the Rough Legged Buzzards which would be a welcome year tick , well driving through the moorland i also encounted several Red Grouse which were a welcome year tick .
One of several Red Grouse.
Red Grouse in flight.
I arrived at the Rough Legged Buzzard site and more or less was onto one straight away , cracking bird to see , there was also a couple of Common Buzzards around for comparison , i saw 2 Rough Legged Buzzards in total and a female Merlin , there was also a distant Great Grey Shrike which delighted the local birders present , so that ends a very successful cracking days birding in Cleveland .
