I had only seen my first ever Bluethroats last year in eastern Poland, however I was yet to see one in the UK and so I had promised myself I would make the effort to seeing the next twitchable one.
At this time of year, Bluethroat isn't really on the radar, however news emerged of an obliging, 1st-winter male at Willow Tree Fen, south Lincolnshire, not too far from Peterborough. It proved to be a very popular bird and as such I wasn't initially keen to head over as it sounded like a bit of a melee.
Around 3 weeks on from the first reports of the bird, I still hadn't got over there. So I finally earmarked Sunday 05/03 as the day to go. A check of the weather on Friday night and it was all change! Saturday 04/03 was by far the better day for weather, with persistent rain forecast for much of Sunday. Clearing out the garage would have to wait for a day!
I set off silly early, with visions of getting there before anyone else and having the bird all to myself (yeah right!). Before arriving at the site I had a brief stop and the nearby Baston Fen / pits which I have to say looked awesome and nice and easy to bird from the side of the road. A couple of Barn Owls were hunting the verges in the early morning light, while there were a nice selection of birds on the pits including 5 Red Crested Pochard, a few Oystercatchers, Shelduck, Goldeneye and plenty of Wigeon.
On then to Willow Tree Fen, some 15 minutes down the road. So far, everything was going to plan and I was indeed the first one there! I set off down the track, eagerly looking out for anything vaguely chat-like flicking out of the strip of reeds to the right of the path. I reached the correct area, easily recognised by the large patch of well-trodden grass.
A birder with some very fancy recording equipment turned up in the hope of capturing some Bluethroat song and low and behold we had our first signs of it's presence with a few short bursts of half-hearted sub-song. Awesome!
A few others showed up. After a bit of a wait the bird finally appeared, flicking out of the reeds, onto the path nearby...only for one particular guy to shout out "there it it is, there it is!" End result, it shot straight back into the reeds. First class fieldcraft there chap, cheers!
A slightly bigger crowd gathered, however there was zero sign of the bird for what seemed like ages. I popped back to the car to put another layer on and to have a slurp of coffee from my thermos flask. Walking back to join the small crowd, the welcome sight of the sun appeared which in turn coincided with some lovely views of a very vocal Bearded Tit in reeds by the path.
Finally, with the sun beaming down, I managed to pick out the Bluethroat singing again and got onto it sat on one of the fence posts directly behind the bird's favoured strip of reeds. I was super chuffed to gain my first prolonged views of it, despite it being quite obscured by reeds.
From there on in, sightings became far more frequent, albeit quite brief. However, following a little scuffle with a male Stonechat, it then appeared in a large, bare patch of ground filling a gap in between the strip of reeds. The views were insane to say the least, with the bird scuttling to within 5 feet of me as I stood stock still. Unforgettable!
He then began singing a lot more, mostly subsong, however would occasionally give it a bit more gusto. Again he appeared and sat in the reeds for quite sometime watching the world go by, before having another feed right out in front of us.
At this point quite a few people departed, however I couldn't resist hanging around for one more showing. Some 20 minutes later, he duly obliged providing further magic views at point blank range.
I then slowly headed for home, popping into Summer Leys on the way, having not visited there for quite some time. There wasn't really much of note other than a couple of smart drake Red Crested Pochard on one of the adjacent lakes, as well as all the usual wildfowl.
What a fabulous day! It's not often I'll travel some distance to see just one bird but today, I made a real exception and I have to say it was 100% worth it!
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