Scarborough

Scarborough Harbour from South Cliff

It was scheduled to be another nice, if cold, Autumn day and I had a mind to have a bit of an excursion. The East coast is in the midst of a mad Autumn passage bonanza so I headed thataway to try my luck with the Hume's warbler at Scarborough.

The train journey to Scarborough went without a hitch. We rolled past landscapes dazzled by a clear November modelling light and I finally twigged that the reason why there's not a lot of birdlife to be seen on the stretch between Marsden and Huddersfield is that there's not a lot of trackside railway furniture for it to be sitting on. Past Leeds the fields suddenly got busy with birds: carrion crows hung around in pairs, rooks and jackdaws were in their dozens, woodpigeons tended to keep to the corners. I should be used to red kites in Yorkshire now but was still surprised to see one hanging in midair over a train maintenance depot. Every so often a kestrel would fly past, buzzards lumbered out of trackside trees and just before the train passed Strenshall a raven — a lot of beak with an excess of crow behind it — cronked defiance at the train before flying off in disgust.

Usually when I visit Scarborough I go straight for the harbour, have a nosy at the North Bay then call it quits. Today I'd be visiting the South Cliff where the Hume's warbler had been seen in the municipal gardens. It was a nice walk down and one I should have done years ago.

South Cliff

Heading into the trees 

I passed the Italian garden and followed a path into the trees that appeared to be part of a braided network of paths that lead down the cliff side. A chiffchaff squeaked from a bush by the roadside, which bode well. The Hume's warbler had been reported as being near the top where stands of sycamores, holly and willow sit in a sheltered hollow. In fact, exactly the sort of place you'd want to pitch up if you were a small passerine that's just crossed the North Sea. It was certainly busy enough: wrens, robins, dunnocks and blackbirds fossicked about in the undergrowth with a lot of grey squirrels while blue tits and great tits bounced about in the tree canopy. Most of the movements catching my eye were leaves detaching themselves from twigs.

Looking for a warbler 

Then I heard an unfamiliar call. When I was reading up on the ID features of Hume's warbler last night I thought I'd best listen to a few recordings of the call, too, as I generally hear warblers calling before I see them. It's a good job I did. This was a two-note squeaky call structurally similar to a yellow-browed warbler's squeaky wheelbarrow call but louder and cleaner, with an almost finch-like quality about it. I tried to find the bird, the call was coming from some sycamores at the bend of the path. I was so intent on finding the bird it didn't occur to me to try and record the call until it had shut up. A coal tit-sized bird with a superficially plain head, no titmouse at any rate, bounced into one of the sycamores and I lost it as a flurry of falling leaves caught the breeze. A couple of minutes later I heard the call further along the path but when I got there there was neither sight nor sound.

I gave it an hour before giving up. A large mixed tit flock including a couple of dozen long-tailed tits gave me hope but no Hume's warbler.

The Italian garden in the rain

I walked back up to the road to find a cold North wind had picked up and was bringing a band of rain with it. It was only ten minutes' worth but enough to persuade me that I really needed a cup of tea so I walked back to the station.

The golden hour was spent watching red kites drifting over the North Yorkshire landscape while roe deer browsed in the fields.

I got the bus home from Manchester.