Our second day at Spurn dawned cloudy and overcast, with slightly dull SW winds. While everyone else was up and out birding from around 5am, Sam's alarm failed to go off until about 05:45 and meant that myself, Sam and Jonny were up and out much later than we intended. Spurn being 'quiet' is a non -existent phrase as it doesn't really have a 'quiet,' with this day being one of these days. Despite this (and our later start,) there was still plenty to see and find. A few Whimbrel were among the 'usual' waders on the Humber, with a Water Rail along the canal, all while Yellow Wagtails commuted between the fields. As we walked along the canal, the bushes were full of Sylvia warblers. For every Lesser Whitethroat, there were around 7 or 8 Common Whitethroat, with this pattern continuing all along the hedges lining the Triangle. By the end of the day I must have seen well over 100 Common Whitethroat. A few Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler were also littered in with the Sylvia warblers, but not in as high numbers. I've never seen - and probably never will for a while - such good numbers of Whitethroats, meaning it was still a special morning. We soon met up with Geth, Megan and Ceri who had been up earlier and (thankfully for us) had seen similar numbers of similar species, with the addition of a juvenile Cuckoo that I kept missing by seconds...
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| Lesser Whitethroat - a significant photo for me as it was the first I'd ever managed of the normally skittish species |
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| Lesser Whitethroat |
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| Whitethroat |
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| m Yellow Wagtail |
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| Yellow Wagtail |
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| Yellow Wagtails - left hand bird was a juv |
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| Yellow Wagtails |
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| Yellow Wagtails |
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| Yellow Wagtails |
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| Yellow Wagtails |
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| m Yellow Wagtail |
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| m Yellow Wagtail |
A Wood Sandpiper on Canal Scrape showed briefly before being chased off by the resident Swallows, and so we decided to walk to Sammy's Point along the Humber (where we only really saw a few more Whitethroat and a few Brown Hare.) I daftly turned down the offer to go to Kilnsea with Jonny where he found a Spotted Redshank, which would've been nice to see. Our walk back to the obs however was slightly better with a southwards heading Tree Pipit, calling as it flew over.
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| Painted Lady butterfly - there were hundreds of them, it was the first time I'd seen so many and seen the spectacle of them coming in off the sea. |
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| Painted Ladies |
We then started our morning of the Young Leaders course by delivering a presentation that we'd presented in the past, with each of ours about a variety of things involving nature; these ranged from local patch birding, to conservation and raptor persecution, as well as engaging youth with nature. After each of our own talks, we were given useful feedback, and it was noticeable how much better they were at the end of the morning when we had been able to act on the advice given. An example of things I've acted on for presentations I've delivered more recently include text sizes, backgrounds and colours of fonts. This session ran for a long time and after brief presentations from the leaders of the course, we reached lunch at around 12:30pm.
A large part of our afternoon was led by Shaun Robson, who delivered a detailed session about the management of areas as a leader and how the problems he's faced from various people have shaped the reserve he helps conserve (Lytchett Bay in Dorset.) To many of us who have only got involved with projects like this more recently, (or not at all,) it was extremely useful as the importance of interactions with other people - including those who may be in disagreement of what you do - was much harder than we expected. For most of us, as we look to get into environmental related jobs in the future, this was new to us, with discussions along the way showing the importance of collaborations with other non-environmental groups, stakeholders and much more. The rewards of the hard work put in at Lychett Bay were seen at the end, and the successful transformation of the wetland in Poole Harbour was evident.
Seeing as the modern world is often revolving around social media, our penultimate session of the day - led by Faye - was about using the resources that we have available to maximise what we can learn and do with them. I think despite nearly all of us using technology in some form - whether it be Twitter, Instagram or one of the various other networking sites - we don't know how to use it strategically for an aim. Faye's presentation gave advice and ideas on how we might use it best, even if we dislike it in some ways, to help us in the future. Learning from this, I've since tried to change the way I use Twitter, and also create a photography Instagram page so that my Twitter isn't always full of pictures! It was one of the most directly useful things we'd learnt so far, as it targeted our day to day lives as well as leadership.
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| A Young Leaders Discussion |
To end the day, we found ourselves far from our comfort zones as the leaders were to lead an act to help us practise/learn how to use evangelising & networking sessions most productively. After being given a small card that had a certain 'guest' representative name on it, we had to promote that role to the various leaders. Since we were in an act, it was harder than it would normally be, as it felt much more awkward and it was harder to avoid laughing, especially with the obs warden Jonnie Fisk putting you off with his wacky comments and ideas...
I think this was the most useful for me personally as since the course finished, I've used the tips a number of times since and felt (slightly) less uncomfortable when networking. When everyone had had enough of the acting, I found myself having a final, awkward conversation with everyone watching and listening, with the leadership course finishing there!
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| Kestrel at sunset |
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| A stunning sunset at Spurn - taken by Luke Hawkins |
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| The end of the Evangelising session |
With the weather being much brighter and pleasant, half of us decided to give the Marsh Warblers another go, and again it was unsuccessful, with a possible bird seen darting out of a tree... We followed this dip up by going to Borrow Pit, where we found a Whinchat (my first for at least 4 years,) a Wheatear and a few Stonechat which meant our birding for the day finished well.
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| spot the white rump |
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| f Wheatear |
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| Whimbrel etc at dusk |
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| Little Ringed Plover, Burrow Pit |
As we'd got to know each other much better, our evening meal was much more relaxed as we spoke to each other more, before we strolled down to Kilnsea Wetlands to witness a stunning sunset, and then returning to relax at the obs to end an awesome second day at Spurn.
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| Dunlin, Kilnsea Wetlands |
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| Dunlin, Kilnsea Wetlands |
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| Dunlin, Kilnsea Wetlands |
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