A nice Buckton ringing first, in the cliff top dell and also heard later in song. This should have been on the site ringing list as far back as September 2001 when during fall conditions (we had already caught a YB Warbler and an RB Flycatcher that morning and there was a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler on Blakeney Point) Jenny noticed something creeping around in a pile of farm rubbish near the main dell. Steve Blain and myself got brief views of an obvious locustella and the adrenaline got pumping ! Graham Elliott who was with us calmly said it will be a gropper, we hastily errected a mist net across the rubbish and within seconds the bird was in and then out of the net, it flew across an open field and away.
Thankfully Steve had obtained several digiscope images which showed beyond doubt it was just a gropper, what chances an eastern race though - would have liked to have ruled straminea out.
The bird that we briefly had on the cliff edge last September, is another story all togther and one for the pub !
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