25th May 1993 saw 4 of us; Ian Lewington, Martin Hallam, Graham Etherington and I make for St Abbs Head in the borders for a Marmora’s Warbler.
If I recall it was a bit of a white knuckle ride as Graham was driving and he had a rather sporty looking car and I’m sure he was in contention for an F1 spot, racing along small country lanes to get us there.
Still we made St Abbs shortly after dawn and found the Marmora’s still present, it was a 1st summer male and a beauty of a bird.
St Abbs head is a national nature reserve on the coast of Berwickshire in the Scottish borders and a very scenic spot, also the home to a large seabird colony that nest on the cliffs that are part of the reserve, a place I would certainly visit again.
After taking our fill of the Marmora’s Warbler we decided to head back south and on the way back we decided to drop in on the Farne Islands as we had heard that “Elsie” the Lesser Crested Tern had been seen recently among the Tern colony there.
We got to Seahouses and managed to take the boat over to Inner Farne, the weather was good and the sea relatively calm. On arrival we spoke to one of the wardens present who said that Elsie had not been seen for a few days, none the less we would still make the most of a visit to these beautiful islands and take in the wealth of seabird’s present breeding on and around the islands.
We wound our way around the various footpaths on the island and constantly being attacked by Arctic Terns that were breeding close to the paths, Martin actually ended up with a small cut on his forehead from a Tern that made contact!
Whilst getting our fill of all the Terns and Auks that were around and scanning some of the coastal rocks I noticed a group of around 50 Sandwich Terns so I promptly set up my ‘scope and went through them one by one and to my surprise found one with a big orangey-yellow bill, that was Elsie!
I called the others over and we sat and enjoyed our 2nd tick of the day.
We stayed on the island a little longer to enjoy the many Terns and Auks present around and take in the atmosphere of the Farne islands.
A very satisfying day, in fact May 1993 was a superb month for rarities with a White Stork at Sidlesham, (Red-headed Bunting) Ipswich, Citrine Wagtail Fleet, Oriental Pratincole Gimmingham, the Marmora’s and Elsie, Great Reed Warbler Elmley, Sardinian Warbler Dungeness, and a Pacific Swift to round off the month at Cley, also other trips to Norfolk, Suffolk, Portland and the Oxon birdrace (107 species), almost 200 species seen that month and many miles driven!
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