Spurn: unrequited love

 I love Spurn.  Always have.  Saw my first Woodchat Shrike there in the 90s, and my first Pallas’ Warbler in the 2020s.  It’s a place of potential, one of those mystical areas where migration is visible on a scale accessible even to the least talented of birders (me) with the worst powers of observation (also me).  

I love Spurn.  But… I’ve always found it hard work.  Spurn doesn’t seem to love me back.  I have walked miles there - and those that have trudged that long walk to the lighthouse will know that there are no easy miles on the spit - in order to miss birds on an industrial scale.  I apologise to all those birders there today hoping to see Wryneck; they know I’m coming and they retreat.  Everyone hunting diligently for Icterine Warblers deserves a reward for doing so with me in the Spurn area.  I never see the target bird.  Not ever.  I always see excellent birds there, but they’re often accidental sightings that I wasn’t expecting or planning to see.  Today’s brilliant juvenile Red Backed Shrike, the five Little Stints, and pairs each of Curlew and Wood Sandpipers were all welcome and wonderful, as was the huge number of Pied Flycatchers, Redstarts, Whinchats, Yellow Wagtails and hirundines.  The sight of a Black Tern seeing off an Arctic Skua will live long in the memory.  But the sunburn, the sore feet, the aching back was all earned walking to and waiting at the site of the third Icterine Warbler of the day that we missed, after the two Wryneck we were ten minutes too late for.  Again.

But no complaints from me.  From such misses as these is determination born, and for each disappointment there were five moments of joy, which is why I love Spurn and why I’ll still check the sightings daily like a love-sick addict, just to know that future nostalgia for what I could see. 

Even though I probably won’t.