Radde’s Warbler, Wells Woods, 14th October 2014

Yesterday’s weather brought some good stuff to the Norfolk coast, including several Radde’s Warblers – a glaring omission from my county list! So when there’d been a couple of confirmatory messages about a bird in Wells Woods we set off in pursuit of this rare Siberian species, which should be on the way to it’s wintering quarters in South East Asia. For a generally skulking species, this particular individual showed pretty well. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the Olive-backed Pipit or Red-flanked Bluetail, which we tried for but dipped. We did see Long-eared Owl, Great Grey Shrike, plenty of Redstart and Brambling by way of consolation however.

A couple more photos of the ‘main attraction’

This is the usual view of Radde’s, skulking in the undergrowth

And the more unusual sight of Radde’s in the open

The supporting cast included this Great Grey Shrike, one of a few on the Norfolk coast over the last week

Long-eared Owl, another Norfolk ‘year tick’

and Redstart, which were in good numbers at several locations