9th October. Try Harder

Spent a full nine hours in the field today walking around Virkie, Toab and then over to Quendale. Spent the bulk of the day at the later up and down the valley and then up and down again. First trip up we had a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers had flight views of the Dusky Warbler and found a new in Red-breasted Fly. Following a quick cuppa at the visitors centre we bumped in to Messrs Riddington, Harvey and Garner. Following a chat with Martin we bid farewell and left them to go up the valley. The Llama commented that he felt uneasy leaving Quendale knowing that that motley crew were on their way up the valley. Sure enough before we'd even put a foot in to the lower burn iris beds Martin was on the phone telling me they'd just found an Olive-backed Pipit - what frightfully lucky chaps! I caught a very fleeting glimpse of the pipit, that wasn't even good enough for the trip list, before it buggered off round the back of the farm. This bird was clearly new in and this prompted us to again do the full upper burn for which we received no reward.



A rather frustrating day with constant news of 'rare' being found all over the place - tomorrow we must try even harder.