To my utter astonishment a Black-and-white Warbler, a tiny stripy American bird had been discovered in Norwich, my university town. But where was I? Not in Norwich, but back in York visiting my parents for the weekend. I was sick with anxiety all weekend, desperate to get back down to Norwich to see this mega bird.
I returned on Sunday evening and made plans to go straight over after my lectures had finished. On Monday afternoon, I headed over to Trowse on the east side of Norwich heartened by the news that the bird was still present. Throngs of twitchers were wandering about when I arrived but nobody had any recent news. Some birders had seen the bird earlier, but it had moved off with a tit flock hours ago. I decided to have a walk along the road, checking out anything that moved.
Suddenly, twitchers were running. I joined them and found a small group of birders watching a fast-moving tit flock. Following directions called out by one of the birders, I struggled for a moment, until there! The Black-and-white Warbler -fantastic! A real avian humbug, creeping about on the bigger branches, and then flitting Chiffchaff like among the twigs. What a cracker. After a few minutes, the flock started to move along the belt of trees and I lost the bird. After another hour or so, I was beginning to freeze and there was no further sign, so I headed back home.
...
Two days later, I returned under sunny skies for another look. Again, after a short wait, the bird appeared in some riverside Sycamores where it gave much more prolonged views with two Blue Tits. An absolutel cracker and something I never expected to see in Norwich!
No comments:
Post a Comment