Yellow Warbler!

Wow, what a day. I arrived back in London for Christmas late yesterday and to be honest wasn't really thinking about doing any sort of serious birding after a lot of time spent on patch over the last couple of weeks. I have recently purchased a 2x extender for the Olympus 300mm lens and I wanted to test how well it worked, so decided to head out to the Isle of Sheppey (a favourite location of mine both for birding and fossil hunting). I'd hoped to experiment with photographing distant waders, gulls and geese on the mudflats before doing a bit of raptor watching at Harty Ferry in the evening, but I had only been at Shellness for about half an hour when I received a message saying "You going for the yellow warbler". What!!!

A quick check of Birdguides revealed that, extraordinarily, the bird was located only about 45 minutes drive away, at New Hythe Gravel Pits. It had been found by Glenn Honey along the millstream bordering a sewage works and was apparently showing very well. Obviously all thoughts of further camera testing were abandoned and I hurried back to the car, only to find that I didn't have enough petrol left to get to New Hythe - absolutely classic, Jesus Christ! Having been delayed further by the fuel stop at Morrisons I was particularly antsy during the drive and practically ran from the car to reach the bird.

It was therefore a relief to find that the Yellow Warbler was showing well upon arrival and it continued to do so for the rest of the afternoon. Most of the time it was flycatching quite high up in the alders and was pretty difficult to follow - the running commentary of "tree 2, left side, three quarters up, flown to tree 3" etc. was very amusing! Photographic opportunities were also quite poor, although I like the distant shot of it below as it caught the sunlight - really glowing, I have never seen a bird that is so yellow! It was calling almost continuously at points, which was helpful for locating it, and I have embedded a rather poor quality recording below.

Later in the afternoon it briefly dropped down low into a buddleia to feed, enabling me to get a few record shots. I thought it might roost there but instead it flew back high into the alders and was seemingly settled right at the top of the tree as light fell - people were scoping it as I left.

Also present were a Siberian Chiffchaff and Firecrest feeding with the Chiffchaff flock that the Yellow Warbler was associating with, and a Green Sandpiper was heard calling from the pits. As my first American warbler this was a fantastic early Christmas present and I'm really tempted to go back if it remains over the festive period.