Eastern journey

Oh, er, hello. It’s me. Been a bit quiet, sorry. I’ve been travelling again as it happens, and whilst I could have tapped a few things down I was having such a relaxed time I couldn’t be bothered. Some types of holidays do this to me I’m afraid, I lose all purpose and dynamism, and just flop about. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it feels lame sometimes.

I was in Hong Kong again, as well as Vietnam. Last year I went west a fair amount, but as all UK birders know, it is the east from where the gems come these days. I’ve been to Shetland a fair number of times, including last year, and whilst I missed the monster birds, I saw tons of visitors that had travelled a very long way to see me. I thought I would return the favour and go and visit them, seemed only fair. As regular readers will perhaps know my sister lives in Hong Kong, another pawn in the global financial system. I’d visited her twice in the last couple of years, once with the whole family, and the plan this time was to repeat that family trip in order to celebrate my Dad’s 70^th birthday. Unfortunately extreme misfortune – known in some circles as clumsiness - runs in the family, and at the start of the year he fell over and broke lots of things.  Like father like son. He could not travel, but as we were all booked up we decided to go regardless, toasting his milestone in absentia.

Given we had all spent some time in HK before, the main focus this time was a side trip to Vietnam. That’s not to say that HK is boring, far from it. It’s a monumental Asian city, fabulously interesting and if you head off the beaten track you really are in another world. However you can also get that in Vietnam, indeed somewhat more easily, and in our thirst for new experiences we took a quick flight across the South China Sea to Da Nang, and from there travelled down the coast to the heritage town of Hoi An.

Unlike a lot of Vietnam which is being rapidly concreted and westernised, Hoi An retains heaps of original character. Markets, old buildings and passageways, street vendors, and a short distance outside of the town paddyfield agriculture.  It is also firmly on the hippie trail so suited me down to the ground ahem. There is not actually that much to report - this was firmly a family holiday and I only managed to sneak out birding a couple of times, once in Hong Kong and once in Vietnam. 

More on what I saw later, but what I really wanted to say was that everywhere I went - from central Kowloon to my sister's garden on Lantau, from a temple in the mountains in Vietnam to sitting in a restaurant in the middle of Hoi An, from under a palm tree on a beach on the South China Sea to waiting for taxi at Chek Lap Lok - I was accompanied by the calls of Yellow-browed Warblers. They were simply everywhere and I think I drove my family to distraction with my constant excitement at hearing them, by pointing them out and by leaping up from relaxed meals to peer into trees. But to me it's the essence of being a UK birder abroad, the ability and joy at connecting events from the "scene" back home to the other side of the plant where you currently are, and understanding more clearly the miracle that is migration and vagrancy. These Warblers were supposed to be here, and my enjoyment at finding them everywhere I went was compounded by this feeling of everything being right and in place.

My Son, Vietnam's answer to Angkor Wat. Known principally for it's wintering Yellow-browed Warbler population.

Weekend target

As you will have gathered from my previous tweet, I am somewhat jealous of all my pals on Shetland. They have the potential to "go large", as they did last year with a Rubythroat, but even if they don't top that, the fact remains that they're knee-deep in Yellow-browed Warblers, and Yellow-browed Warblers rock. Birders not clued up on autumn won't have any idea what I'm talking about. Non-birders who have perhaps landed here by accident looking for domestic pointers will be even worse off. So what's a Yellow-browed then? Well put simply it's a very regular migrant whose frequent occurrence in the UK at this time of year belies the massive distance that it has come. Siberia and the Urals is about the closest they live if you read the literature, yet somehow they are the most regular eastern migrant. They're small, marginally bigger than a Goldcrest, but with the most superb call you could imagine. Writing cannot possible do it justice - its a very high-pitched, very quick and extremely strident "Tsuu-eeee-viit" that sounds like nothing else. It cuts through wind and the rustling of leaves, and is a sound that autumn rarity-hunting birders are very in tune with. Until you've heard it you don't know what it sounds like if that makes sense, and in my case autumn isn't complete without it.

I remember hearing my first one on the north Norfolk coast in about 2008. I knew exactly what it was but I couldn't tick it as I couldn't see it! Can you imagine the frustration, my number one wanted bird somewhere invisible above my head. Later that day I did finally clap eyes on one a few miles down the coast, and since then I've seen them every year and in some numbers. I'm probably on 60 or so now thanks to several trips to Shetland, but the numbers there this year are incredible, with some guys seeing over 40 in a single day. Whilst I can't get to Shetland this year, there was no way I was going to let a year pass by without hearing that magical call, and with birds gradually trickling down the coast I headed off to Norfolk this morning for a spot of coastal birding, with a particular focus on Sycamores for that is what they particularly like. 

There was one at Beeston Common, bouncing around in a Sycamore (!) close to the road and sure enough I picked it up on call just as I'd walked up to local who was explaining how the birds this year just weren't calling. This particular "Tsuu-eee-viit!!" was triumphant in quality, a real "are you sure about that 'cos I'm not!" riposte. Music to my ears. No photos and it remained mostly hidden, but it called its head off for us, and then solely for me as the other people headed back to the sea to twitch a fish. No really, there was a Basking Shark off the coast and they were really interested in seeing it. I'd already seen it from Cley Coastguards, and perhaps was a bit blasé about it. Hey ho, just a big fish, whatever. This however is a Yellow-browed Warbler from Siberia and it's a gem. 

Here's one from Shetland a few years back so you know what I'm talking about - you can see how they get the name.