The possibility of going out birding this Sunday looked very slim with rain forecast for most of the day and with illness etc, we decided to give it a miss. Whilst I sat in my night attire, watching it rain and contemplating having to watch the millionaires of Manchester & Liverpool ballet teams trying to cheat the good referees of premier, foreign football, the phone rang. It was Bob K asking if I would like to go for the Black throated Thrush at Adwick upon Dearn, Yorkshire. Certainly I would, we met at 11-45am and Chris B joined us. We followed Bob`s trusty sat nav and arrived around 1pm, nobody told us of the long muddy walk to the area the bird was frequenting. We found around 20 birders but, you guessed it no bird. It had been chased off by the local Sparrowhawk about 10 minutes prior to our arrival. Nige S from York had arrived and he told us that Adam Hutt had found the thrush (famous for finding the Rock Thrush at Spurn / Kilnsea a few years ago) this morning. After about an hour of searching and wandering around the birders all moved with a purpose, the bird had been found in a field near the village.
The same muddy trail back to the car park was followed, then lots more mud to splash through. After the 20 minute hike to the village a crowd of birders seemed to be looking at something, scopes all pointed down into a field with a green crop in it, was the thrush there? Yes it was, if a little distant, a few borrowed scope views of the bird soon confirmed the identification. After 10 minutes the flock of thrushes flew up into the tallest tree and began to preen, again distant scope views were made, time to move on we thought. Bob K had a bright idea to follow another very muddy trail to get to where the thrush had been sat, okay we did follow him and saw a couple of Siskin for our troubles, but alas no thrush. We all arrived back at Bob`s car looking like we had been playing football, steaming & muddy. The Black throated Thrush had been a new bird for Chris B, so the effort we made was well worth it. We arrived back in Rochdale by 6pm.
