February Birding
After a very ‘birdy’ January, the pace of February was somewhat slower, with family visits and trips to see friends reducing our birdwatching opportunities. However, overall it was a case of quality, not quantity. We started the month with a trip to Eastbourne on the 3rd, in search of a fairly long staying Hume’s Warbler. Rarer warblers like this can be very frustrating, as they flit unobtrusively amongst the branches, and so it proved today. We were helped by the fact that it’s call was loud and highly distinctive, and the bird was very vocal, often alerting us to its current position. Nevertheless, it felt rather like jigsaw birding - ‘I’ve seen the tail…this time I got the wing bar… now the head and eye stripe’. Eventually I managed a fleeting glimpse of the whole bird in the bins, but it was certainly hard work! On 14th February we were back again in Eastbourne, this time lured across by the American Robin which had appeared the previous week in someone’s front garden, presumab