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27 August 2026 Point taken

Blakeney Point really isn't my thing. It is really hard to walk, is very exposed and is hard to bird if you don't have a partner. So I tend to avoid it, in favour of East Hills, Burnham Overy Dunes, Wells Woods and the like. But looking at the weather charts for this week - easterlies emanating from the Finland/Russia boundary, gusting through the Baltic, crossing Jutland and reaching the UK - I decided that Blakeney Point was my best option for a day of bird finding. This was in part because Blakeney does August drift very well, partly because my chosen date of 26 August marked 39 years to the day since I enjoyed Great Snipe, Greenish Warbler and dozens of Wrynecks on the Point during a YOC holiday, but mainly because I reckoned it was the most likely place to find my target bird for the day: Booted Warbler.

The bird prompted a reasonable twitch, as plenty of Norfolk birders need Melody for their county list. I spent the rest of the day searching for other birds. The closest I came to gold was a dull, dark nightingale species, for which instinct screamed Thrush Nightingale, which I pished out of suaeda at Halfway House. It landed briefly on the shingle between two patches of cover, ran into one... and never came out. I waited, I pressed, I pushed, I coaxed - for fifty minutes - to no avail. The failure left a slightly bitter taste in the mouth, but a step back was all that was needed to acknowledge that the day was excellent.

The downside of having stopped to pursue the Icky and photograph the Jynx was that I watched Andy Stoddart overtake me. I suspected that I would regret this, because Andy would reach prime birding spots before I did. And I was right. While birding Near Point with Sacha Barbato, we noticed Andy clearly stalking something cautiously on Middle Point. Given the effort being put in, it was clearly something good - not 'just' a Barred Warbler or something. I reckoned this might be the Booted Warbler I had predicted... Hurrying round, I arrived a few minutes after he had nailed the ID of his bird as, unexpectedly, Norfolk's seventh (?) Melodious Warbler!

I wanted to do the Point thoroughly and slowly. So I set off at quarter to eight and returned at quarter eight - am and pm, respectively. A full 12 hours on the shingle, during which I walked 35,000 steps, strained the knee of my left leg, got cramp in my right hamstring, and drank 6.5 litres of water without more than 10% of that coming out. All of this reminded me why I don't bird Blakeney.

The blue skies and warmth didn't exactly lift my spirits. Where were the forecast cloud and rain? Nevertheless, the birding was excellent. Just south-east of Halfway House I found an Icterine Warbler. It was flighty and kept pressing east (perhaps fresh in?). It would appear for a few seconds then fly before I got my camera focused. Eventually it headed past The Fairway and all the way down the stretch of land where the Syke's Warbler was a few autumns ago, then headed north beyond a broad channel - at which point I left it be and continued west. At The Hood I bumped into a Wryneck, which was lovely. I knew there had been a bird on the Point the previous day, but not where - so this felt like a find, even if it presumably wasn't because the previous day's bird had been seen between Halfway House and The Hood!

Although gutted not to have found the bird, it was thrilling to watch it with Andy at close range, with no other birders present. The comparison with the morning's congener was intriguing. Whereas the Icky was a rangy, long-winged bird that even reminded me of a Spotted Flycatcher in flight, the Melodious was compact, small and rather Phyllosc-like as it moved on short wings between clumps of suaeda. Here are a few more images, which - among other things - show the diagnostic long first primary that extend beyond the primary coverts.

Alongside the star birds - and other birders picked up 2/3 Wrynecks and reportedly a brief White-winged Black Tern - there was a decent complement of more familiar migrants. My personal totals were 17 Pied Flycatcher, 30 Wheatear, 8 Redstart, 4 Spotted Flycatcher, 3 Garden Warbler, 10 Willow Warbler, 3 Chiffchaff, 11 Whinchat and a Tree Pipit. And this in sunny conditions when the vast majority of birds must have flown straight over. This all means that I can't shy away from the truth: Blakeney can indeed be a truly special place to go birding. Point taken.