End of April and the start of May

At long last the desired change in weather came along on the 29th with light southwest winds. That brought with it all the change in action needed. Between Style Scrub were four Grasshopper Warbler - possibly even five!

Other migrants included eight Wheatear, three Yellow Wagtail, 1 Tree Pipit while 16 Shorelark were still present.

Passage was fairly interesting with highlights including three Tufted Duck, 70 Common Scoter, seven Eider, Goosander, Golden Plover, six Bar-tailed Godwit, 4 Whimbrel, 2 Arctic Tern and a trickle of Hirundine.

The next day was an emotional one, a great day with an unprecedented wader movement past Long Nab but in stark contrast the news that And Roadhouse had passed away came as a shock, despite the fact we all knew it would one day happen.

I first met Andy at, of course, Spurn when I moved there in March 2009 to begin my contract of Little Tern warden. As with everyone at Spurn Andy was incredibly encouraging and I learnt so much from him in such a short time.

I was lucky enough to see him a couple of times fairly recently, his fight with cancer was always high spirited and he really was going till the end.

His book The birds of Spurn is pride of place on my bookshelf and forever will be, I feel proud and privileged to have know Andy, as I am sure everyone who did will feel the same.

Andy's passion (apart from food and beer) was migration, so despite the sad news we chose to honour his memory by enjoying a real spectacle of migration - followed by a few Whiskys that night.

Andy (joe) Roadhouse at Spurn back in 2009. Some great memories.

The strong southeast winds clearly caught out loads of moving waders and that morning many passed south past Long Nab, totals of 32 Bar-tailed Godwit, six Whimbrel, 29 Knot, 11 Dunlin were trumped by an amazing 69 Grey Plover, easily doubling the number of Grey Plovers I have ever seen in Scarborough since moving here, five years ago!!

Other highlights included one Dark-bellied Brent Goose, 1871 Kittiwake, 151 Sandwich Tern and 9 Arctic Tern.
In the windy conditions birding elsewhere was difficult but two Grasshopper Warbler were at Long Nab along with two Wheatear, two Barnacle Geese were on Johnson's Marsh, 12 Bar-tailed Godwit and a Grey Plover were in Jackson's Bay and nine Bar-tailed Godwit were in North Bay.

Passage off Long Nab on the 1^st May was a little slower, although waders moving included three Grey Plover and singles of Ringed Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Curlew, Sanderling and Dunlin.
Other highlights included 22 Sandwich Tern, 27 Arctic Tern (many ‘out east’), 26 Sand Martin, 188 Swallow and two House Martin.
Migrant wise there were seven Willow Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler, six Lesser Whitethroat, seven Wheatear, White Wagtail and a female Redstart.

Sunrise in North Bay early on 30th April

Bar-tailed Godwits on North Bay beach early morning