They seek him here......

A text off John this morning asking if I fancied going for a second day reported Yellow Browed Warbler in Oakam near Rutland. I didn't need asking twice, and within half hour, we were on the road.

What we were looking for- the elusive YBW

 

We arrived early on the housing estate where the bird had been reported, and started our search. The Yellow Browed Warbler had been seen the day previously in a residents back garden. We started our search by this house.

The other side of this fence is the garden where it was last seen

 

We wandered around the estate checking in all likely looking places. Still no joy.

Wandering round the estate

 

On hearing a police siren, I wondered if it was heading in our direction? It must have looked odd to the waking residents of this estate looking out of their windows and seeing us wandering around the area wearing binoculars.

I hoped we wouldn't attract too much attention.

 

Soon, more birders had arrived and we no longer looked so suspicious as the numbers increased. A woman did come out of her house to ask us what was going on? She was very pleasant and quite interested in the gathering numbers of birders arriving.

With no luck locating the bird, we returned to the area it was last heard calling, by the back garden of the house where we initially started. I was very surprised when the owner came out and invited us all into his garden to continue our vigil there. I very kind gesture indeed.

The warblers favourite garden

The preferred residence of a Yellow Browed Warbler

We hung around for a while, but to no avail. There was no sighting of the YBW while we were there, and reluctantly, we conceded defeat on this twitch.

As is usually the case, we expected to see it appear as a message on our phones as "showing well" when we were 40 miles away in a homeward bound direction. It wasn't! In fact, it wasn't reported again that day.

 

Posted with Blogsy