Blogging at 20:45 on Saturday 7th October from intended overnighting spot N 54.05908°, W 00.32366° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:54.05908%2C-00.32366
First up today was Sewerby Hall parkrun. It was a devil of a course that was made even harder because of a mightily strong wind straight off the sea. It went OK, though, in spite of buggered knees.
Thereafter I spent all day touring the Flamborough headland taking in both ends of Danes Dyke (northern end pictured), North and South Landings, The Lighthouse at the head itself, Thornwick Bay, and the southern end of Bempton Cliffs.
More than anything, it's been a day of really interesting crossover-contrast between summer and winter fauna. In terms of summer fauna, I saw several red admirals, a chiffchaff and what were probably my last swallows of the year. In terms of the winter, I saw, a newly arrived solitary fieldfare perched on the first fence in England on top of Bempton Cliffs. This was soon followed by a newly arrived solitary redwing that put up from the grass on top of the same cliffs as I unwittingly approached it.
More redwings followed, but these - for me - were the he best sighting of all as I was able to watch them flying in quite low over the sea and then overtop the cliffs before carrying on (quite nonchalantly, it seemed) westward. I've never definitively seen winter migrants actually make first landfall before, but this was as certain as I could be that I'd witnessed the phenomenon in real time.
After a full day of 'bracing' east coast weather I've now moved inland a bit and am quite close to Burton Agnes hall. It's a simple roadside pull-over but so far has been very quiet and the fields around and about have thrown up good numbers of passerines, three species of game birds, a few buzzards and a few brown hares.
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