Saturday 24th October
South Shields hosts Jewel in the Crown
Seeing the very wet forecast, feeling a bit under the weather (others may refer to it as man flu!) and not being able to cope with a BIG DIP, I met with my team at 06.30am on Saturday morning and headed North hoping that if it wasn't there, at least we would not have travelled too far before knowing we had dipped! With three others for company who also suffer from the affliction that is known as Twitching, all we could do was wait and keep driving north. At 08.30am, just south of Birmingham we received the news we were waiting for and I then knew it was going to be a very long day!
At 2.00pm we arrived in drizzly conditions and dashed down to the quarry to get cracking scope views of the boy! After enjoying some great views, despite the weather, we headed back to the car about 2hrs later and the weather deteriorated and we got completely soaked! Within 5 minutes, the weather had miraculously cleared and the sun was out and I felt it rude not to go back for second helpings! The light was great, it was calm and still and the eastern gem performed exceptionally along with a much more elusive YBW that seemed most unhappy with its new eastern neighbour.

So - back in the car and another 7 hour drive home returning at about 01.30am Sunday - Was it worth it? Of Course it was!

See below for poor record shots of the little beauty.
Eastern-crowned Warbler - 1st record for Britain.