We got the news at around lunchtime yesterday that an Alpine Accentor had been spotted in Suffolk, that is a lifer for all of us, but we have family commitments so could not go for it.
So fingers crossed we arrange to meet at 5am this morning.
We meet up with Brian and take the A12 and get a trouble-free journey and arrive at Slaughden Suffolk just before 7am,
Then we head to Aldeburgh and find the car park by the Martello Tower where the bird had roosted overnight.
It's still dark when we arrive at the tower along with a crowd of birders, we are soon looking at the pipe that the bird had stayed the night on.
We could just about make out the Accentor as it started to move about on the pipe. It then flies off the pipe and around the back of the tower and out of sight, it is refound 20 minutes later on the rocks a fair way up the beach.
The group all head up to relocate with the bird and we get some long-distance views of it, after a time it flies away and heads further up the beach. we walked back down towards the tower and stop to talk to John p and while the four of us are talking the bird flew past us and landed on the rocks right by us then walked up the bank to be only a few feet away, so for a minute or two we have the bird all too our selves before the large group head back down to join us.
So this is our tenth lifer of the year and a cracking little bird that gave us a lovely morning birding and catching up with some other birders. After 3 hours we head off for home knowing we couldn't have had a better view of the Accentor.
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| The Alpine Accentor |
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| again |
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| Nice view on the rocks |
