28/10/2018 Day Trip to Cornwall for Grey Catbird

Sunday 28 October 2018
Cornwall

Having "dipped" on the American Golden Plover at Oare Marshes on Wednesday and Thursday I decided to head down to Cornwall today to twitch the long-staying Grey Catbird near Lands End.  Up at 04.00 put me on-site just before 10.00 along with 30+ other birders.



• I had just missed the bird by a few seconds when I arrived so I had to wait another 45 minutes or so to get the good views I craved.  The bird showed well in it's favourite position among the brambles and sallows at the end of the ditch.  This was a lifer for me!
•  Also seen during the interlude was a Short-eared Owl, a Chough and 20+Fieldfare - not bad as a supporting act. 
• Before heading home I called in at the nearby Drift Reservoir to twitch the Ring-necked Duck.

A "lifer" and a year tick was not a bad return for a 650 round trip - and I still made it home in time for  dinner just after 6 p.m.






The BBC report for the Grey Catbird sighting is copied below.

Rare bird sighting sees hundreds travel to Land's End

17 October 2018

 

 



• The first sighting of a grey catbird in Britain was in Anglesey in 2001, according to the British Birds Rarities Committee.
• Mark Grantham, chairman of the Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society, said he thought the bird, which was first seen on Monday, had been brought across the Atlantic on low pressure systems following the recent US storms.  "Birds heading south get carried out to sea on weather systems and then can follow the Gulf Stream before making landfall at the first opportunity," he said.



• News of the grey catbird spread on Twitter, and birdwatchers started arriving, with a local farmer opening a field for parking, taking charity donations in return.
• "Cornwall is used to seeing its fair share of rare birds, but American birds certainly provide extra excitement," Mr Grantham said.  "To see [the grey catbird] flitting along a Cornish hedge is always going to be extra special."