Rufous-tailed Robin.......... At South Landing Flamborough

                                             SOUTH  LANDING

                                     FLAMBOROUGH

                                    27th October 2026

                                                

Rufous-tailed Robin

News of an incredible find on the 20th October at South Landing Flamborough got the whole birding world in panic stations !!!!

Zak Spall had found the UK's 5th only Rufous-tailed Robin , massive congrat's to Zak Spall on his truly amazing find.

I didn't get the opportunity to try and see this incredibly elusive bird until Tuesday 27th  October. 

We left Kent at 12.30am and arrived at approx 5.30am after driving through monsoon weather conditions at one point !!!

The Rufous-tailed Robin has been incredibly elusive since it was first found, we had heard horror stories of 9 hour waits without a sniff plus some people only getting the briefest of views after spending hours waiting, 5 second views were about the best some got, however it had also shown well on the odd occasion giving 20-30 second views at times.

We were in the opinion that we needed to get in position on site asap because there is only a small viewing area looking down into the ravine plus step ladders were needed for viewing if the crowd got to big.

We got in position , thankfully there were only about 15 birders in total so step ladder was not needed, as it begun to get a bit lighter one or two European Robin's begun to call, then after about 10 minutes the shout went up !!!

'It's on the Path', we spread out but in the grim light i couldn't see anything , a European Robin appeared on a fence post but the RTR was nowhere to be seen.

Then the shout went up again. 

'It's back on the path'  and sure enough this time i saw it , right out in the open, i couldn't believe my eyes or our luck, the Rufous-tailed Robin then started to feed in the leaf litter at the base of a tree, then flew up and landed on the bench before disappearing behind the log pile.

It then more or less reappeared straight away giving some absolutely awesome views as it fed in the leaf litter and even out in the open on the path walking straight towards us at times, we watched the Rufous-tailed Robin for the next 45 minutes, it then flew behind the log pile again and we decided to head off as it was beginning to get quite busy with more birders turning up.

Here are a selection of some of the many photos i took.

Walking towards us.

Rufous-tailed Robin

We also saw 3 Tundra Bean Geese & several Pink footed Geese on Beacon Hill.

Tundra Bean Geese & Pink footed Geese

 We then headed to Bempton Cliffs and after a search of the car park bushes we located the stunning Pallas's Warbler which showed well but was to quick for the camera, we also saw Firecrest, Goldcrest (4), Chiffchaff (3) & several Tree Sparrows.

On the way out of the reserve we saw 15 White fronted Geese in a field.

Tree Sparrows

White fronted Geese.

Our next destination was Mundesley in Norfolk, the journey was very long and arduous but we eventually arrived and the run around begun !!!

The Slender-billed Nutcracker was very flighty this afternoon and we were finding it very hard to catch up with it, after a good hour trying to see this bird we all eventually saw it by the bridge on Water lane on top of an aerial plus some good flight views were obtained.

Slender-billed Nutcracker

What a fantastic trip in great company with Steve .C. & Julian .R. , a very special thankyou to Steve for not only organising this trip but for doing all the driving, the machine strikes again !!!