No. 9 Ortolan Bunting 7th September 2016
A single 1w bird spent the day in the brooms only the 22nd record for the London area
The second bunting to feature in the top ten and the one that gave us the most trouble, unless you count the 2 birds we failed to clinch an ID on. All our buntings of note have been seen in the months of September and to a greater extent October (bar the Snow Bunting from 11th November 2011, but since I was the only observer of this it wasn't added to the short list).
One of the birds that will annoy me in many ways. The morning was one of the grizzly ones we like at migration time, but it was so gloomy that when I did find the bird making weird zit like noises I couldn't make out any structure on the face, which looking at the picture above you might hard to the believe, but I can assure you at the time I saw it it was just a spotty bunting. I considered Ortolan (the Collins app didn't help), but never having seen one before I was pushed towards a Corn Bunting on a diet, Either way it hoofed it towards Centre Copse and that probably would be the end of it!
Bob and Jon (working from home) scoured the area after I wandered off, but to no avail. Luckily I found it again in virtually the same place, but couldn't get a pic as my Sigma lense's stabiliser was shot, then it was again flushed by a doggy. This time Bob and Jono did manage to find it again, and it was Bob's pictures, the only ones taken of the bird, that lead to its ID. He tells the story here http://wansteadbirding.blogspot.com/2016/09/teamwork-having-given-up-at-08-30-with.html
Tony B: "A report of juvenile Corn Bunting around Brooms had me
cycling like Chris Froome straight from home to the patch after work (it’s
quicker than driving at that time in the evening) and what a surprise when the
back of the camera photos revealed an Ortolan Bunting!"
Jono L: " high jinx on the flats"
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